


Scorched Earth

by KC_Polar_Bear



Category: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Power Rangers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:27:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 166,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24692266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KC_Polar_Bear/pseuds/KC_Polar_Bear
Summary: When a nameless evil invades Earth, killing everything in its path, the first eleven Power Rangers must face an enemy beyond anything they’ve ever encountered; and this time, saving the planet may cost some of them their lives.
Relationships: Aisha Campbell/Rocky DeSantos, Jason Lee Scott/Trini, Kimberly Hart/Tommy Oliver
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	1. Collapse (Post-Amerika)

**Author's Note:**

> Very AU from the moment Zeo started; slightly AU from the moment Jason, Zack and Trini left. Takes place midway through Zeo, only Zeo didn’t happen. Jason, Trini and Zack are still attending the Peace Conference in Geneva, Kim is still in Florida training for the Pan Globals, and Aisha is still in Africa. When they left, however, their powers weren’t transferred – they still have them, and five new powers were created for their replacements. Also, that whole letter thing didn’t happen, either. The current team, led by Tommy, is Billy, Rocky, Adam, Kat and Tanya.
> 
> This story assumes that the Rangers were juniors in high school when they got their original powers, meaning they are currently in their second year of college, putting their ages at approximately 20-21.

**“In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons.”  
** **-Herodotus**

 **World Youth Peace Summit: Main Campus  
** **Jonas Salk Memorial Dormitory  
** **Geneva, Switzerland  
** **August 28, 2012  
** **7:15 PM Geneva time**

“Mom, how many times do I have to tell you – nothing is going to happen!” Jason Scott shifted his cell phone from one ear to the other and squeezed it between his shoulder and his head. Shifting the small pile of books he held from one arm to the other, he shoved his now free hand into his pocket and pulled out a ring of keys. “They’re sending us with six interpreters and an entire squad of trained security guards; besides, we’ll only be in Cairo for a week and then Zack, Trini and I are taking the cheapest flight home.” He fumbled with the keys for a moment as he rounded the corner of the bright hallway, his black dress shoes clicking softly on the tile floor as he approached a door near the end of the hall.

“Yes, Mom, like I told you three days ago, home as in Angel Grove, not home as in here, I don’t consider this place home anyway… How am I supposed to know what time we’ll get there? I don’t make the plane schedules.” As he unlocked the door and swung it open, he heard a soft beep on the other line; frowning, he dropped his books on the desk just inside the door and took his phone away from his ear, staring at it in bewilderment.

“Bitch hung up on me,” he grumbled, tossing the phone onto the top bunk of one of the two sets of bunk beds that occupied either side of the cozy room he now found himself in.

“That bitch is your mother,” said the slender Asian girl who sat cross-legged on the futon in the middle of the room, beneath the large window that looked out on the main campus. Trini Kwan held a plate of food on her lap; a book lay open on the empty seat beside her, a yellow highlighter holding the pages open. She leveled her gaze at Jason over her fork.

“That bitch stole my act,” Jason replied, undoing his tie and starting to unbutton his dark red dress shirt. “I’m the one who always hangs up on people. The hell does she think she is?” He shot a wry smile at Trini as he pulled his arms out of his sleeves and started undoing his belt. She scoffed at him and shook her head. Jason let out a small laugh and said, “Whatever. She was just getting all worked up about that trip we’re taking next week. Again. You know how she gets.”

Trini smiled at him. “At least your parents care about the trip. All mine do is give me constant crap about how long it’s been since we’ve been home.”

Jason grinned again, tugging on a pair of khaki cargo shorts and a red tank top before slumping against the bed frame and sighing. “Yeah, what I wouldn’t give to get out of here for a few days.”

“Rough day?”

Jason rolled his eyes and strode across the room to the mini refrigerator that sat against the back wall, between his desk and the TV stand. He swung it open and leaned inside for a moment. “You have no idea. I just spent the last three hours debating the future economic viability of the European Union. Swear to god if I don’t get something to drink pretty soon I’m gonna start pissing sawdust.”

“And there goes my appetite,” Trini said. He heard the clank of her fork against the plate as he stood and turned around, a pair of beers in his hand.

“Don’t mention it,” he responded cheerfully, crossing the room and plopping down on the couch beside her. He pulled a Swiss Army knife out of his pocket, flipped out the bottle opener and cracked one of the bottles open. “You probably shouldn’t be eating anyway. You look a little…pudgy. I don’t mind, though, I mean, you know, more of you to love.”

Trini gasped and glared at Jason as he took a long swig of the beer and raised his eyebrows at her. After a moment, she set her jaw, snatched up the fork, and jabbed it angrily into the salad on her plate before thrusting it into her open mouth. She was in the midst of chewing when she noticed Jason’s smirk. Groaning, Trini let her head fall back against the couch; she closed her eyes and swallowed hard. “I cannot believe I just fucking fell for that.”

“I love you too.” Jason laughed heartily and sipped his beer again. “Ah. The benefits of having German roommates. Beer?” He cracked the other bottle open and offered it to her; she eyed him up and down for a moment suspiciously.

“Do your roommates know you and Zack have been raiding their alcohol supply?” Trini inquired, taking the proffered beverage and taking a quick swallow. “Delicious as it is.”

“Hell if I know,” Jason answered, moving Trini’s book out of the way and leaning closer, draping an arm around her. “Though we’ve been doing it for so long that if they don’t know by now they probably don’t deserve to be here in the first place. Hans and Franz are great and all, but I was kind of relieved when they went home for the month. They’re a dragon short of a Thunder MegaZord, if you know what I mean.”

“You know they hate it when you call them by those nicknames, right?” Trini asked as she leaned her head into Jason’s shoulder. “They told me once when you were in the bathroom or something.”

“Which is why I’ve put some of that politics we’ve been learning here to use and only said it behind their backs like a civilized human being.”

“You’re kind of an asshole today, you know that?”

“You would be too if you just spent three hours straight essentially talking to a wall.”

Trini giggled and tilted her head back to plant a gentle kiss on Jason’s lips. “You’re too good for them,” she muttered sarcastically. She felt his smile widen against her forehead.

“Tell me about it.”

“I had something else in mind.”

The two of them absently lowered their drinks to the floor as Trini turned around and nearly sat in Jason’s lap. Both her arms looped around his neck as she pressed her lips against his, passionately probing his tongue with her own. Jason cupped a hand around the back of her head, taking in her warmth, her taste, gripping her tightly against him as they kissed deeply, intensely.

They stayed locked together that way for a long moment before Jason heard the soft creaking of the door swinging slowly inward; Zack Taylor poked his head into the room and opened his mouth to speak, but stopped and simply watched the two of them silently. Soon, Jason held up a finger without even opening his eyes. Zack grinned and leaned in the doorway.

Jason pulled back gently, letting Trini’s lower lip catch between his teeth for a second as he went. He pressed his forehead against hers, his eyes still closed. “Babe,” he whispered tenderly. “People are staring.”

Trini groaned and glanced over her shoulder at Zack, who beamed at her and waved. “Oh, don’t mind me,” he said, placing a hand over his stomach. “Please, continue.”

“Pervert,” Trini said with a laugh; she reached behind her, grabbed the pillow she’d been leaning on and chucked it at him. He ducked as it sailed over his head and bounced harmlessly to the floor.

“Hey, man,” Zack said, raising both hands in a gesture of surrender. “Ever since the Summit started blocking all my favorite channels I’ve had to take what I can get. Besides,” he quickly added with a laugh in response to Trini’s disgusted glare. “You want perverted, ask Jason about the dream he had about you last week.”

Before Trini had even turned back to confront him about this, Jason was pointing a finger at Zack, drilling twin holes through him with a look of playful rage. “Traitor. You are so fucking dead, you have no idea…”

“Watch it, Jase, or I’ll tell Trini about those fruit-flavored condoms you’ve been keeping in your wallet for the last month. Oh, wait. Oops.”

Jason leapt to his feet, his face turning as red as his shirt. “OK, that’s it buddy, next time you want someone to cover for your ass while you ‘get lost’ in an erotic toy store for half an hour consider yourself shit out of luck.” He turned back to Trini. “Tri, it’s not what you think, I…”

“What flavor are they?” Trini asked casually, picking up her beer and taking another sip. “I like watermelon.”

Jason gaped at her. His mouth worked soundlessly for a moment before he took a staggering step back and leaned toward Zack, who looked just as stunned as he was. “Uh, Zack? What exactly is in those beers?”

“Don’t ask me, bro, I don’t read German.”

Trini giggled and rose to her feet, stretching. “I win again. Damn, you two are so easy it’s barely even fun anymore.”

Jason visibly sagged with relief, his face slowly returning to its normal color. “We need to stop playing this game before one of us has a coronary.”

“Or a certain Red Ranger gets fatally blueballed,” Zack chimed in, followed by a cough that sounded suspiciously like Jason’s name. This earned him a reproachful look from Trini and an amused nod from the dark-haired young man beside him. Just then, they heard pounding footsteps in the corridor followed by banging on the heavy wooden door. Jason exchanged bewildered glances with his two friends and crossed the room to open it.

“The hell is going on out there?” The boy who stood outside was familiar to him; it was a Brazilian boy named Marco that Jason had been partners with for a debate once. He was breathing hard, a layer of perspiration shining on his face. Jason saw other doors closing down the hallway and realized this kid had been knocking on every door. “Marco, what is it? _Que pasa?_ ” Jason asked, his voice taking on a more concerned tone.

Marco babbled in rapid fire Portuguese, his words flying straight over Jason’s head. “Marco, Marco, hey, slow down,” Jason said, gripping the boy’s shoulder. “ _En ingles, por favor._ What happened?”

Marco finally seemed to catch his breath and looked up at Jason with panic in his eyes. In heavily accented English, he said, “Turn on the TV. Turn on the news. Right now! They’re coming!” Then he wrenched himself out of Jason’s grip and sprinted to the next door, where he repeated his frantic knocking. Jason stepped back into his room and let the door swing shut.

“Is anyone else severely unnerved right now?” Trini asked quietly. Jason picked up the remote control from beside the TV and flipped on the news channel.

“What the hell is he on? They’re just replaying that interview with that guy from the Olympics,” Zack said, folding his arms over his chest.

“Try the global news channel,” Trini suggested. “Channel 7.”

Jason pushed a button on the remote and the image changed. Trini gasped, her hand flying up to her mouth, and flung herself at Jason, falling into his chest as he wrapped one arm around her. All three former Rangers’ mouths fell open at what they saw; the remote slid free from Jason’s hand and clattered to the floor. Finally, the boy in red found a voice to articulate the thought that was racing through all three of their heads.

“What. The. Fuck.”

* * *

 **Somewhere in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter  
** **Three hours earlier**

NASA satellite _Explorer_ floated lazily through the immense blackness of space, whizzing along through untold miles of emptiness as it navigated the asteroid field. Its onboard navigational systems kept it steadily pointed toward its target in the Kuiper Belt, on the very edge of deep space; a small light on one side blinked steadily, sending constant readings back to Mission Control. If there had been air to vibrate, the tiny machine would’ve beeped and whirred softly as though someone had launched a household appliance into space.

As the probe made its way through the asteroid field – which was far more sparsely populated with its namesake space rocks than many were aware – a massive magnetic disturbance was picked up by one of the array of sensors it carried. The tiny satellite rotated its camera to send a picture of the source of this disturbance back to Earth.

Before the camera could even be brought into position, the probe detonated in a cloud of floating fire that quickly dissipated in the surrounding vacuum. Beyond the silent explosion, the source of the destruction approached, moving rapidly through space and puncturing the asteroid field.

Just then, in a cramped, harshly lit control room three stories underground somewhere in the United States, a Mission Control technician would notice a random spike in the readings, followed quickly by a loss of all contact. He would reach immediately for the nearest phone, frantically informing his superiors of the anomaly they’d just experienced. A few minutes later, he would examine the last readings and crease his brows in confusion. The only conclusion he could reach scared the ever loving shit out of him – _Explorer_ hadn’t just blacked out, it had been destroyed by…something. The tech would drop the readout to the surface of his desk, leaning back in a cold sweat and running a shaking hand through his hair. This was insane.

Things would only get worse from there.

The interstellar armada was massive, tens of thousands of enormous, shapeless vessels looming over the assorted orbiting space debris in its wake. The fleet pushed steadily onward, its destination clear.

As the incoming flotilla continued toward its target, a fantastic array of lights flashed from the head ship; half an hour later, a few million miles away, a series of small explosions shattered the omnipresent stillness surrounding the unassuming blue and green planet. The onslaught wasn’t far behind. As the ships closed the distance, the first few ripples of unease began to blossom – first communication, then Internet connection capabilities, and finally all but a scant few television stations went dark, leaving the most connected generation in history more isolated than at any time in the last century and a half. A phone call between a mother in California and her son in Switzerland was unceremoniously cut off, as were thousands of others. The world that had shrunk so quickly over the past two decades underwent a devastating growth spurt in the span of a mere few minutes. Soon, any sort of international travel would be rendered impossible; shortly after, any kind of global shipping of food, supplies, or any sort of goods would cease. Eventually, the situation would deteriorate to the point that the entire world would begin to go dark as the last of the fuel was used up or fought over. The entire human race would devolve into deeply fragmented populations of wandering savages, barbarous warriors, and marauding groups of civilians forced to remain on constant alert simply to stay alive.

And that was only if the invaders _didn’t_ interfere. Unfortunately for everyone, these creatures’ plan extended far beyond that first strike.

Right then, as the fleet broke apart and dozens of individual ships split off for separate destinations, encircling the planet as lions do a downed gazelle while the main group slowed to a stop near the Moon, any objective observer would’ve concluded that humans, generally speaking, didn’t stand a chance in hell.

* * *

 **World Youth Peace Summit: Main Campus**   
**Jonas Salk Dormitory  
** **Geneva, Switzerland  
** **August 28, 2012  
** **7:45 PM, Geneva time**

“Where is this coming from?” Zack demanded, pointing a shaky finger at the TV. “It looks like a big city but I don’t recognize anything.”

“I think they’ve been switching from one place to another,” Jason answered, squinting at the TV. “They’ve been to like twelve different places now. Let me see if I can find anything online.” Jason gave Trini a quick squeeze before letting go of her and moving to his desk, flipping open the laptop that lay there. After a minute he stood up and turned to his friends, his brows furrowed in concern.

“I can’t get a connection. There’s no WiFi signal at all, I can’t even get the Ethernet line to work. Damn it, where’s Billy when you need him?”

“No cell service, either,” Trini mumbled to herself, staring at her cell phone. Jason spared a glance at her before turning back to the TV. The images playing out before them were astonishing. Footage from around the world showed gargantuan…things floating over skyscrapers in cities all over the world, things that might have been space ships though it was unclear due to their bizarre appearance. They were like something out of the inside of a geode – totally shapeless, a random jumble of jagged peaks, domes, sheer flat surfaces that looked as big as city blocks, and every so often something that resembled the prow of a ship. Their surface was a strange mixture of opaque black material that looked smooth enough to be glass and intensely reflective, crystalline portions that cast blinding glares into the cameras taking the film. Now Jason realized he did recognize some of the places being shown – London. Rio. Paris. Hong Kong. Two hovered over New York, one of them centered directly above the UN building. Others floated over Washington, D. C., St. Louis, Chicago.

Los Angeles.

“Any idea what the fuck those things are?” Jason asked quietly to no one in particular. “That one’s only a couple hundred miles from home.” Suddenly, one of the floating monoliths on the screen started to…the closest thing Jason could think of to describe it was _sparkle_. A dazzling array of flashing lights in a scope of colors so vast it included some he’d never seen before began playing out over the surface of the ship, growing steadily brighter and faster until they merged into a single flash; the ship seemed to shudder and dozens of brightly colored fireballs flew from it like bees from a hive.

“What the hell is it doing?” The question was barely out of Trini’s mouth when the first of the glowing streaks collided with a building; the explosion that bloomed out from the impact sight was a brilliant shade of turquoise, the shockwave jostling the picture. The three friends watched in wide-eyed horror as a sphere of the same color radiated out from the initial explosion. It didn’t seem to be made of anything tangible – it passed right through the destroyed walls of the building that had been hit and just kept right on going.

Until it found people. A small group of five or six was standing in a tight cluster in the background of the shot, gazing up at the sky and shielding their eyes from the sun. As the blue-green dome radiated out towards them, they turned and began to run back toward the camera, stumbling across the grass in their terror. The Rangers looked on awestruck as the wave caught up to them; the first person it touched was a young blonde woman who’d fallen behind, screaming desperately for her companions not to leave her. As the wave went through her, she had time to contort her face into a howl of pure agony before her body was completely disintegrated, a little at a time. One by one, the others met the same gruesome ends; until the wave reached the camera itself and the whole feed went to static.

“Anyone else having major _Independence Day_ flashbacks?” Zack asked softly, falling back onto the bottom bunk.

“Among other things,” Jason replied, his arm back around Trini’s shoulders. As he spoke, the room seemed to dim, like something was casting a shadow over them. Turning slowly toward the window, Jason spoke again. “Is it me or did it just get darker in here?”

“Oh shit,” Trini muttered as the three of them clustered around the window. There, hovering a few hundred feet in the air was a craft just like the one they’d just been watching. It was so big it blocked out the sun; Trini thought she saw a plane crash into it, the explosion only a tiny pinprick of light against the thing’s haphazard black background.

“We have to get out of here,” Jason said, gently pulling his roommate and girlfriend away from the window. He turned into the room long enough to grab his communicator off the desk and clamp it around his wrist; he noticed with relief that Trini and Zack were already wearing theirs. Jason gave Zack a shove toward the door, grabbing Trini’s hand tightly as he moved that way himself. “Guys, come on. We have to get out of here before…”

The first shockwave was powerful enough to throw all three of them out the open door, crashing into each other as they landed in a pile in the hallway. The window in Jason and Zack’s room exploded inward, glass showering onto the floor. Jason jumped to his feet, pulling his friends up behind him. Other doors were being thrown open now, the occasional crash or thump echoing down the corridor as people fell or ran into each other or something fell over and broke.

“GO!” Jason roared, hurling Zack and Trini down the hallway ahead of him.

That was when things really went to hell.

Without warning, another shockwave crashed into them, powerful enough to rock the entire building. Another boy running down the corridor careened sideways into Zack, slamming them both against the wall. Jason grabbed Zack’s shirt as he went by and yanked him along, racing toward the stairway. The three friends had to weave through a rapidly thickening crowd of people as every room in the building began to empty, the entire population of the dormitory stampeding toward the exits in a state of blind panic.

Zack suddenly skidded to a stop and pulled Jason and Trini to one side. “What about the elevator?” He shouted over the clamor. “Everyone’s going for the stairs; maybe it’s actually faster that way.”

“We’re on the eighth floor, man, we can’t risk it falling!” Jason shouted back. Just then, the entire hallway was illuminated by the enormous projectile – this one glowing a hellish orange – that streaked past just outside the window beyond the elevator. A second later, there was another tremor from below, even more intense than the others, and the heavy elevator doors were thrown out of the wall, flying toward the hapless students by the rising explosion behind them.

“Fuck!” Jason tackled Zack and Trini to the floor as the massive slabs of metal whizzed by over their heads and a wave of intense heat washed over them. The people behind them weren’t as lucky. The doors slammed into them with bone-crushing force, taking heads off and shattering limbs as they went, carving a swath of carnage down the hallway and leaving puddles of blood and broken, mangled bodies in their wake. Those closest to the elevator who’d managed to avoid the doors were cooked alive by the heat of the explosion. Zack glanced up long enough to see Ming, a girl from China, come running out of the rising smoke cloud on fire, clawing at her throat as screams of agony wracked her body. As the smoke cleared, other victims became visible, things that had once been people reduced to little more than clumps of charred flesh that filled the hallway with the sickening smell of cooked meat.

Trini screamed, the first of many hot tears beginning to stream down her face. She turned and started to look behind them but Jason thrust his head into her path. “Trini!” He shouted her name to get her attention over the rising clamor. She locked eyes with him, desperately searching his face for reassurance; all she found, though, was the cold reality of their situation. “Don’t look back there,” he said, gentle but firm. “Trust me, you’ll wish you hadn’t. Look at me. Hey, look at me.” Some twisted urge made her crane her neck to try and see past him, and he cupped her cheek in his hand, forcing her eyes back to him. He held her gaze, his eyes burning with steely resolve. “I am gonna get us out of here, you got that? We’re gonna get out of here, we’re gonna get back home, and we’re gonna show these assholes what they get for fucking with Power Rangers. All of us,” he added, nodding to Zack. “But right now we need to get out of this building. Our communicators don’t have teleportation capacity anymore and there’s too much interference in here to call for a ride even under normal circumstances. Believe me, I’ve tried. But if we can get outside we can get home. I promise-“

She cut him off by thrusting her lips against his. The kiss, though short, was filled with longing and passion – both of them knew it may very well be the last. They pulled back and Jason held Trini close; she nuzzled her cheek against the stubble that grazed his chin. “Come on,” he said after they’d taken all the time they could afford. He held her at arm’s length and smiled. “We have a flight to catch.”

“Right.” Trini nodded and turned, and the three of them rejoined the throng of their fellow students that pushed toward the stairs, crushing themselves into a space that couldn’t hold them all at once.

Despite its apparent herd mentality, the crowd of students moved surprisingly fast. Jason, Zack and Trini made it to the fifth floor in only a few minutes, and were just starting to believe they’d actually live through this when another projectile, this one bright, angry red, came flying straight through the wall ahead of them. An entire flight of stairs before them was suddenly just gone as the streaking ball of energy traveled straight through one wall and out the other, leaving crumbling holes in its wake. The destroyed set of stairs had been packed tightly with several dozen students, none of whom had any way of avoiding the thing that came crashing in toward them. A few of the luckier ones near the front or back managed to shove themselves to one side of the thing, but even some of them were unable to find steady ground on either side of the gaping hole in the stairway the thing left behind; the three Rangers saw a few of these people go tumbling into thin air, crashing with a stomach-churning thud into the stairs below, where most of them were trampled by the hysterical mob that sprinted away from the disaster, fleeing for their lives.

Those were the lucky ones. The wide majority of the people on the stairs between the fourth and fifth floors were caught directly in the path of the missile. Those at the epicenter were virtually obliterated by it, their bodies simply popping like balloons; Jason felt a spray of blood splash across his face, filling his nose with the horrible copper tang. Others who were more on the periphery were cast aside like human bowling pins, their crushed bodies sent hurtling through the air to slam with devastating force into the nearest wall or ceiling or go hurtling out through the hole in the wall. The screams of people plummeting fifty feet to the ground echoed in the stairway for a long moment; Zack couldn’t decide which disturbed him more – the screams themselves or their abrupt, choked cessation.

“Holy god,” Zack whispered. He nudged Jason, who was staring out through the hole the fireball had left behind as though he could bring it back. “Now what?”

Jason didn’t budge his gaze away from the singed, collapsing hole. “We climb.”

“Are you crazy?” Trini hissed at him, whirling around only to clamp a hand over her mouth at Jason’s blood spattered face. Weakly, her voice muffled by her hand, she added, “We’re five stories up, going out there is suicide.”

“Would you rather we jump?” Jason asked, gesturing to the gaping hole in front of them. “We can go out the hole, climb down to the next floor, break in a window and take the stairs the rest of the way.” Without even waiting for his friends to respond, Jason inched forward, his back pressed against the wall. Letting out a long, slow breath, he pivoted on his right foot and swung his left around, barely managing to catch the edge of the hole with his toes. Wishing he’d thought to put shoes on before this all went down, Jason leaned out as far as he dared, stretching out his arm and curling his fingers around the jagged edge of the opening. He awkwardly hopped on his other foot as close to the edge as he could get; the most he could get was a hold big enough for half his bare foot to rest on, unprotected sole grinding against splintering wood and mangled rebar.

Feeling the skin on the bottom of his foot being ripped off, Jason pushed off the edge of the destroyed hallway and half hopped, half dragged his left foot across the surface of the hole. He was just able to plant his other foot on the edge as he began to lose his balance, squeezing the side of the opening and curling his bleeding toes around the lip to steady himself. As he turned back to face Zack and Trini, he found he could just barely reach a hand up to the upper edge of the hole and press it against the broken wall to keep his balance. He glanced back at Zack and Trini and held out his right hand. “Come on.”

Trini moved hesitantly to the ledge and regarded his position. “Are you sure you’re stable?”

“Physically? Sure. Mentally?” Jason shrugged and smiled. Trini rolled her eyes and tucked the long hem of her yellow blouse into her tight jeans. She shot a glance at Zack before edging herself up to the ledge as far as she dared. She let out a long breath before leaping out over the empty space where the stairs had once been and catching Jason’s hand with both of her own. Her weight swung forward like a pendulum and she planted both feet against the wall below the lip of the hole. She glanced up at Jason.

“You got me?” He nodded and she slowly begun walking up the wall until she found a tenuous foothold on the lip of the opening. Jason gave her a gentle tug and she pulled herself up to a standing position, her thin form just fitting between Jason’s bulkier frame and the edge of the opening. She looked to Zack, who looked like something out of an apocalyptic movie; standing alone at the edge of the abyss, the ruined dorm crumbling to pieces behind him, his black shirt torn and dirty, his face streaked with sweat and grime and gore. Trini turned back to Jason. “What now?”

He jerked his head to his other side, where there was more than ample room for two more people to stand on the precarious ledge. Trini raised a skeptical eyebrow. “How exactly am I supposed to get over there?”

“Climb around me.” At her look of incredulity, he raised a hand and gave her a very significant look. “I’m not going anywhere. Look.” Jason held out his free hand and stood without moving for several seconds before he let it fall casually to his side. “Hold on to me; put your foot between my feet and lean against me for balance. Come on, it’s like three feet. You’ll be fine.”

“I think you drastically underestimate your own size,” Trini muttered, but she moved toward Jason, gripping his right hand in her left and placing her right hand on Jason’s left shoulder. She slowly lifted one foot and placed it gently on the ledge between Jason’s two bare feet. Her other foot soon joined it, but there was so little space that she was forced to stand with one foot on top of the other. Carefully, Trini maneuvered her right foot out from the bottom and extended it to Jason’s other side. She let go of his hand and gently patted his hard, toned stomach. “Suck in that gut, soldier,” she said quietly, grabbing his raised left arm with both hands and spinning herself away to find herself on the far side of the hole.

“Yes, ma’am,” he muttered back, grinning. Trini moved a little further away, holding Jason’s hand with one of her own and reaching out to lean against the far edge of the wall with the other. That was when she noticed the condition of his feet.

“Jesus, Jason,” she gasped, staring at the trail of blood that ran down the outer brick wall of the building. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’m fine,” he answered curtly, turning to extend an arm to Zack. “Nothing a trip to Command Center General won’t fix.”

“Assuming we get there,” Zack piped up from the ledge.

“Would you shut the hell up and jump?” Jason shot back, drumming his fingers against the top edge of the hole. “If you’re so concerned about my feet why don’t you move your ass so we can go home?”

“Right. Sorry,” Zack said casually as he swung his arms back and jumped, catching Jason’s hand and swinging into the wall just as Trini had. “I just thought you wanted to fill your blood loss quota for today’s little adventure before we left.”

“Ha. Ha ha. Ha. Fuck you,” Jason snapped, helping Zack walk up the wall while easing himself sideways towards Trini. By the time Zack had reached the ledge, there was sufficient room for him to stand, leaning against the side of the hole for balance.

The three of them gazed out over the campus and beheld the scene of mass carnage that lay spread out before them. Some buildings were on fire; others had begun to completely fold in on themselves. Occasional bolts of that strange alien energy came tumbling down from the sky. Jason counted five different colors, each behaving a little differently. There was the turquoise ones they’d seen on TV, which exploded upon impact and released a radiating field of deadly radiation that destroyed any living thing in its path; the orange ones which simply exploded, but seemed to create liquid fire that moved like it had a mind of its own; the red ones like the one they’d just seen, which ricocheted off the ground but plowed into buildings like a wrecking ball. Those three he’d already dealt with; the other two he saw were entirely new to him. One, which gleamed a shade of purple he would’ve found beautiful if it wasn’t for its lethality, impacted with the ground and stuck there like a dart; after a moment, it released dozens of bolts of pure purple light that scattered in infinite directions, piercing anything they came into contact with. Finally, a single silver-colored fireball aimed itself toward a large group of survivors who had clustered outside the entrance to one of the buildings. It seemed to pop before it ever reached the ground, raining down some kind of fluid on the people beneath it; as Jason watched, the entire group went rigid, freezing in place and giving off their own dull silver glow. He frowned. _What the hell is that for? What are they gonna do with those people?_

He shook the thought from his mind – there was no time for that now.

“Guys,” he said softly, snapping Trini and Zack out of similar reveries. Jason motioned with his head. “We need to climb down a level and around the corner to get in on the landing.”

Trini turned a pale shade of green at the idea; Zack swept a hand out at the wall before them. “After you, fearless leader.”

“Oh, sure,” Jason complained, edging closer to the edge of the hole; Trini flattened herself against the side to give him as much room as possible. “Make the guy with the mutilated bare feet do the climbing first. Brilliant.”

“You know, I distinctly remember this whole thing being your idea,” Trini pointed out, still pressed against the side of the hole.

“Not helping.” Jason turned to face the inside of the building, craning his neck to the wall below him. A ledge ran around the brick every ten feet or so; the nearest one was about four feet below him. There was also the occasional window, several feet apart, each with a steel bar running across the top and thin sills that projected from the wall. Gritting his teeth, Jason took his hand off the wall and hopped back from the ledge, catching the thin lip of the hole with both hands and planting his bare feet against the brick wall.

Trini and Zack let out twin shouts of surprise at his sudden drop; once he’d steadied himself, Zack shook his head and said, “Goddamn, Jase. No more _Assassin’s Creed_ for you from now on.”

“Let me know if you see some falcons and a hay bale,” Jason retorted, smiling slightly at Zack’s relieved chuckle before slowly unfolding himself, letting his feet rest on the ledge below. Once he’d nearly made it around the corner, Trini, then Zack followed him, using his bloody footprints as a guide for where to go next. Eventually, as Jason found himself situated over the window that led into the landing, which was still precariously intact, Zack stopped for a moment in the process of rounding the corner.

“Hey, Jase, your blood makes a really handy little guide to follow.”

“You’re welcome,” Jason called back, before adding under his breath, “Asshole.” He readied himself, squeezing the ledge above the window in both hands and testing the glass with his feet. _OK. My blood’s gonna make this thing too slippery in a minute – it’s now or never._ Jason swung back and kicked as hard as he could with both feet.

Nothing. The sheet of glass didn’t even crack.

“Shit!” Jason screamed, moving himself off the window as quickly as he could so as not to lose his grip. “It’s reinforced. We’re gonna have to take a window from the other side, in the hallway.” As he spoke, he dared a look behind him. For a moment he felt a rush of dizziness, which he shook off rather easily; not so easy to shake off was the realization of how small everything looked from fifty feet up. Jason turned back to the building, squeezed his eyes shut, and focused on shutting everything else out for the time being. They had to get around the building and inside or they were all going to die. It was that simple.

He zoned out a little at that point, let his hands and feet act on their own as he slid inside himself, entering a state of active meditation he’d perfected during one of his many late-night sparring sessions with Tommy in the training room beneath the Command Center. When he finally came back to himself, his earlier anxiety replaced by a detached, almost amused calm, he found himself already around the corner, moving at a downward angle along the building to a window that led into the hallway, one he hoped would be easier to break. Zack and Trini were perched about six feet above his head, gingerly following his tracks along the wall. Jason looked around and spied a viable window only ten more feet to his right. He looked up and started to inform his friends of their good luck when a red fireball came bursting out of the building mere inches to Zack’s right. Trini shrieked the Black Ranger’s name as he lost his grip and pinwheeled through the air, plummeting toward the ground.

Jason reacted on pure instinct. Coiling his body like a rubber band, he leapt to his left and caught Zack’s wrist with his hand; as they fell, he stuck a hand out desperately for a hold…

And found a window that had already been shattered by some previous incident. His arm disappeared into it up to the shoulder and was dragged out by their combined weight. As his elbow cleared the ledge, Jason’s scrabbling fingers finally found purchase and caught; the combined weight of both young men was suddenly yanked tight against Jason’s right shoulder. He heard a pop, and then the agonizing pain of something separating. Grunting in pain, his jaw clenching, Jason looked down at Zack, tears of pain already forming in his eyes.

“Zack…” he gasped. “I hurt…my shoulder…mother _fucker_ …you gotta…get off…can’t…hold…” Jason let out a scream of pain that echoed across the chaos of their campus.

Zack looked at the wall before him. “There’s a window here but the glass isn’t broken. I need some way to swing against it.”

Jason bent both legs at the knee, forming a pair of makeshift monkey bars. “How’s this?”

“Great. One sec.” Zack swung back on Jason’s arm and leaned forward to grab first one leg, then the other, until his entire weight was held on Jason’s right leg. The window was right there; he just needed some way to break it.

Following Jason’s example, Zack bent his own legs at the knees and swung back, gradually building momentum and forcing himself to tune out his friend’s pained groans. He counted softly to himself as he swung. “One…two…THREE!” Zack swung forward as hard as he could and flew knees first into the window, which mercifully shattered on impact. He landed hard on his back, grazing the top of his head on some of the jagged shards of glass that still lay on the sill as he rolled to the floor. He quickly leaned out the window. “Hold on, Jase!”

Zack darted up a flight of stairs to find Jason still dangling from a window on the fourth floor. He reached out and grabbed Jason’s uninjured left arm, leveraging his feet against the wall to pull both of them into the hallway. Panting, the two young men lay on the floor for a moment, Jason cringing as waves of pain shot through his arm. “Where’s Trini?” He managed to gasp.

“Right here.” The yellow Ranger came bounding down the stairs, her face paling at the sound of Jason’s strained, shaky voice. “I climbed through the hole that thing left behind. It missed the floor by a foot.” She crouched at Jason’s side and looked to Zack. “What happened?”

“When he caught me he ended up catching that window and hurt something in his shoulder. It sounded pretty bad.”

“How do you think it felt?” Jason asked as the three rose slowly to their feet. “Come on. If we’re lucky we can take the stairs all the way down and right through the front door and catch a ride the hell outta here.”

It appeared they were lucky. The stairs held all the way down to the ground floor. Zack and Trini had to half-carry Jason for support, his feet unable to take his weight much longer. As they entered the main hallway on the ground floor, Jason shook himself free of their hold and said, “I can walk the rest of the way myself. Thanks.”

Zack and Trini shook their heads at each other but let Jason go, moving carefully toward the front door. Trini slid her hand into Jason’s and sagged against him with relief. “Thank god,” she sighed. “I think we may actually get out of here.”

No sooner had the words left her mouth than a deafening explosion sounded just above them. “You had to say something,” Jason moaned.

“Sorry.”

Before either of them could react, another red fireball came crashing through the ceiling; it traveled at a downward angle, its path bisecting the entire building before it crashed to the ground just outside the front door and bounced away.

There was an earsplitting creak as the dorm building’s support beams began to give way, and the entire structure began to fold in on itself. Giant chunks of brick, concrete, sheetrock and wood began to rain down around them, throwing up a blinding cloud of dust. The three of them charged forward, racing desperately for the door. Trini reached it first, catching the doorframe and nearly falling into it; Jason slammed into her and carried both of them out the door and onto the grass…just as a turquoise fireball landed only a few yards away. The initial explosion flung them both back against the building like rag dolls, dragging cries of pain from both of them as they crashed into the brick façade and crumpled to the ground. Jason heaved Trini to her feet, but her legs wobbled and she fell against him; he glanced up to see the radiating dome spreading toward them, flying across the ground like a tidal wave. He threw Trini over his uninjured shoulder and staggered, exhausted, across the campus lawn as the energy wave raced toward him. The blades of grass tore into his lacerated feet; his shoulder felt like someone had punched him with a fistful of broken glass; his entire exhausted body screamed in protest, a new pain registering in his chest where he thought he may have cracked a few ribs; and yet he kept going, throwing himself and Trini away from the glowing blue-green death that chased after them like a hungry wolf.

Finally, he glanced over his shoulder and saw it dissipate. Jason dropped to his knees and let Trini roll down his arms to lie in the grass. “Trini?” He prodded her gently. There was a nasty wound above her left eyebrow from which blood had begun to pour, and several of her fingers were twisted at impossible angles, but he quickly found a pulse, and felt steady breathing from her nose. It was then that he noticed that they were alone.

“Zack!” The Red Ranger cupped his hands around his mouth and screamed his friend’s name even louder this time, begging the universe to bring him back. “ZACK!” There was still nothing, no response except the continued chorus of death that filled the air around him.

He couldn’t take it anymore.

Grunting in renewed agony, Jason raised his communicator to his mouth. “I swear to god if you don’t work…Hello? Command Center, Zordon, do you read? This is Jason.”

At first there was nothing but static, and Jason was about to try again when a booming yet gentle voice burst from the tiny device around his wrist. “We read you, Jason. It is good that you contacted us. With the attacks happening around the world and the high amount of interference from your campus, we were beginning to worry for your safety.”

“Zordon,” Jason panted, unable to hold back another grunt of pain. “That’s just it. There was an attack here. Our dormitory building has been completely destroyed, Trini’s unconscious and we were separated from Zack. We need emergency teleportation home right now. Please.” He hated the way his last word sounded, as though he were begging, but seeing Trini in the state she was in and not knowing at all where Zack was, Jason felt as though he would fall apart himself pretty soon if they didn’t get out of this.

“Jason,” came the voice again, that voice he’d come to trust so implicitly over the last few years. It was filled with concern now, the great Eltarian mage not hiding his worry for his chosen Rangers’ safety. “We’ve locked on to your location. It will only be a few seconds. Please be safe and try not to move.”

“Thank you, Zordon.” Jason tried to speak with the calm, clipped tone he usually used to talk with his mentor, addressing him like a soldier would a general, but his voice broke on the last word and he felt a terrified sob threaten to burst free from his mouth.

Just as Trini’s eyes fluttered open, and she lightly squeezed his hand, three streaks of light launched into the Switzerland sunset. Two, one red and one yellow, were right next to each other, nearly joined together. Another, sparking black, was weaker, flickering, and came alone a few yards away. Their disappearance went unnoticed entirely by anyone else present; any of the few who were still alive at that point were too busy hiding or running for their lives to see them. The monolithic amalgamation in the sky was completely oblivious to them; after they’d departed, the massacre raged on as though the three had never been there at all.


	2. Come Back To Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very AU from the moment Zeo started; slightly AU from the moment Jason, Zack and Trini left. Takes place midway through Zeo, only Zeo didn’t happen. Jason, Trini and Zack are still attending the Peace Conference in Geneva, Kim is still in Florida training for the Pan Globals, and Aisha is still in Africa. When they left, however, their powers weren’t transferred – they still have them, and five new powers were created for their replacements. Also, that whole letter thing didn’t happen, either. The current team, led by Tommy, is Billy, Rocky, Adam, Kat and Tanya.
> 
> This story assumes that the Rangers were juniors in high school when they got their original powers, meaning they are currently in their second year of college, putting their ages at approximately 20-21.

**“It requires more courage to suffer than to die.”  
** **-Napoleon Bonaparte**

 **United States National Gymnastics Team Training Center  
** **Main Gym  
** **Miami, Florida  
** **August 28, 2012  
** **1:30 PM EDT**

_Running start; jump, plant both feet on springboard._

_Tuck front flip onto beam, right foot in front of left, throw arms up to counteract forward momentum._

_Brief pause. Deep breath._

_Round-off into back flip, spread legs wide, laser focus on the beam. Place one foot, then the other._

_Pivot full 360 on left foot, right leg extended as far as possible._

“Hey Kim!”

_Get interrupted by pretentious asshole._ “Hey, Sean. How’s your parallel bar routine coming?” _Fake smile, feign interest. Doesn’t matter what he does, stay on the beam, pretend he doesn’t exist._

“Great. Should be more than ready for the Globals. Anyway, I wanted to ask you something.”

_Huh. That’s new._ “Uhh…OK. What’s that?”

“Where did you get it?”

“Excuse me? Get what, exactly?”

“You know…” _The hell is he doing with his face? Is there some kind of hidden innuendo I’m not getting here?_ “That stuff you’ve been using. Where’d that come from?”

_Oh hell no. You did not just fucking ask me that._ “What makes you think I’ve been using anything? You are aware that sort of thing is about twelve different kinds of illegal, not to mention extremely stupid. Or do you _want_ your balls to shrink?”

“I’d be careful what you say to me right now, Kim.” _Oh, that’s great, look how threatening you look with your arms crossed all serious. The hell do you think you are, Ray Liotta?_ “It would really suck if Coach Schmidt found out about this.”

“Are you threatening me, Sean?” _This is just sad. He can’t even keep eye contact with me. One_ look _from Tommy or Jason and this shithead would wet his pants._ “Because that doesn’t tend to work out well for most people.”

“Oh, come on, Kimmie, spare me the self-righteous runaround and just tell me where your stuff came from.”

Kimberly Hart’s concentration on her beam routine was finally snapped, her urge to beat this guy to a pulp right there in the middle of the gym taking up the remainder of her attention. She lowered herself so she sat casually on the end of the beam, her legs swinging lazily, and looked him dead in the eye, her face a mask of amused disinterest. Sean Preston stood about 5’5”; the majority of his body mass concentrated in his wedge-shaped torso and oversized biceps. His short, sandy blond hair accentuated his protruding forehead and pale skin; his eyes were a muddy hazel color that gave the impression of indecision.

“You know Sean, I find it a little difficult to take you seriously when you’re wearing basically the same thing I am,” Kim said calmly. “Maybe next time you want to intimidate someone you shouldn’t do it in a onesie.”

Sean snorted and rolled his eyes. “I really don’t have time for this, Kim. I’m going to ask you one more time, and if you don’t tell me, I’m going to Schmidt. Where did-“

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Sean, but I don’t have any ‘stuff,’ as you call it. Whoever told you I did is blowing smoke up your ass.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Really? Cause Stephanie Miller doesn’t strike me as a liar. You, though…” He trailed off and she hopped down from the beam to look him dead in the eye.

“Think very, _very_ hard about how you finish that sentence, Sean,” she said quietly, jabbing a finger in his face. “I, not to mention any of the first six people on my speed dial, could very easily kick your ass. And Stephanie Miller once tried to tell me she had a dismount named after her when she was twelve. Either she’s a way better gymnast than we’ve ever seen or you really need to work on your critical thinking skills.”

Sean glared at her for a long moment before he finally shook his head. “Fine, don’t tell me. You should know, though –“

“What did I just finish telling you about threatening me, Sean?” Kim placed her palms on the beam and prepared to hoist herself up. “Or do you need me to show you?”

“Maybe it’s time you stopped letting your boyfriend fight all your battles for you.”

Kim turned slowly to look him dead in the eye. “Maybe you should work on not letting your brain shut down completely anytime a hot piece of ass walks by.”

He waved her off dismissively and turned to walk away, muttering “Bitch.”

Kim pulled herself to her feet on the beam and watched him go. “Douchebag.”

Just as she was about to begin performing her routine again, she felt a tremor run through the building. Kim paused and looked around. The gym was mostly comprised of one single, massive open room; numerous different apparatus were scattered throughout the large space, the whole thing lit by humming fluorescent lights and the smells of chalk and sweat. All around the room, men and women of roughly Kim’s age and size were going through complex routines on different pieces of equipment, many of them tuning out the outside world in the process. The stereo system played some kind of bad Muzak playlist; the sounds meant to do nothing more than prevent utter silence. After a minute of calm, Kim decided she must have been imagining things and returned to her beam routine.

_Now where was I before I was so rudely interrupted?_ Kim bent her knees and leapt into another skill, throwing herself forward onto the beam and catapulting her weight into a series of handsprings that left her teetering on the end of the beam without an inch to spare. She threw her arms out in a flourish and tilted her head back, arching her body to demonstrate the grace of her movements.

She opened her eyes just in time to see the ball of bright orange…something come crashing through the gym’s ceiling, careening over her head to impact the far wall. Kim stood riveted, her feet stuck to the beam as though they’d been nailed down, and watched in horrified fascination as a wave of fire bloomed out from the impact site. The heat from the flame was so intense she could feel it from all the way across the room. What was worse, she could swear the flame was… _alive_ somehow, as though it could control where and how quickly it spread – the inferno didn’t seem to catch on the walls at all. Instead, it quickly made a beeline down to the floor, where it swept across the expansive floor of the building like it was made of rotting wood, greedily attacking any apparatus in its wake. As Kim looked on, the fire reached the uneven bars, the furthest apparatus from her, where another girl had perched on the top bar once the fire had begun to spread. The girl screamed and looked around desperately, searching for a way out, but she was trapped. The fire surrounded the bars entirely, the pad laid out beneath them letting out a soft _whoomp_ as it ignited, its soft stuffing fueling the cackling inferno even higher until the panicked girl’s feet began to singe.

It didn’t take long for the thick smoke and intense heat to get to her, and the girl lost her grip. Kim let out a shriek of her own as the girl disappeared into the hungry flames, a few stunned tears stinging her eyes. People had begun to run past her now, frantically charging toward the main doors to the gym. Kim finally managed to tear her gaze away from the place where the girl had once stood and hop down from the beam, hitting the ground running with the rest of her teammates. The twenty or so people in the gym raced for the door, seeking any possible escape from the nightmare they found themselves trapped in.

Suddenly, Kim felt the very air around her begin to vibrate; she cast several nervous glances around her but didn’t see anything besides the fire that still grew steadily toward them. Then there came a soft whistling sound from somewhere outside the gym, a sound not unlike the sound effect of a bomb being dropped. With a gasp, Kim realized that she couldn’t just _hear_ the sound; she could _feel_ it, a gentle, soothing hum that seemed to sap all of the fear and anxiety right out of her. She slowed to a stop, seeing others around her do the same, and stared up into the gym ceiling, unable to do anything other than crane her neck toward the source of the sound. As the whistle steadily intensified, a small, blissful smile began to creep across Kim’s face. The sound was so beautiful, so peaceful, so happy. It filled her entire body with a rush of such intense pleasure she could barely move, her arms and legs practically shaking from the intensity of her joy.

Kim and the other gymnasts stood frozen for several seconds; the fire seemed to recognize their incapacitation and stopped within a few feet of them, still blazing contentedly. Then a giant ball of energy glowing a spectacular shade of deep violet came crashing through the ceiling to land with a resounding crash just in front of the door. The eyes of the people gathered in the middle of the room centered on the luminous projectile as one, transfixed by its beauty. Its deep purple color pulsated gently, like a heartbeat, throbbing in a deeply relaxing rhythm. If any of those who stood there had been aware enough to notice, they would have felt themselves being slowly drawn forward, clustering around the strange missile like worshippers.

Suddenly, Kim felt a vicious tug at her mind – something was screaming a warning to her, desperately trying to yank her out of her trance. Her eyes widened, the blissful smile dropping from her face as her Ranger instincts thrust themselves into her conscious and the danger of the situation became apparent.

“Get down!” She screamed, still unable to move her body. Nobody seemed to hear her; the other gymnasts’ eyes had begun to glaze over, their faces frozen in expressions of ecstatic reverence. Kim wrenched her torso back and forth, her movements still restricted as if she was bound. Finally, she was able to pull one of her feet free of its prison on the floor and spin sideways. Kim grabbed the two closest people and dove to the floor, screaming her warning again. As she fell, a searing heat lit up across her back, tearing her leotard in half as the bolt of purple electricity shot by just over her head. She watched as it traveled to the back wall, disappearing into the blackened sheetrock as Kim and her two companions toppled to the floor.

The sound that followed would stay in Kimberly’s mind for as long as she lived. A series of muffled thumps, hollow knocks, and the faint sizzle of burnt flesh echoed through the now silent gym all at once, a horrifying audio cocktail that sent a shiver down her spine. Forcing her eyes open, wincing at the pain in her back, Kim glanced around her and had to throw a hand over her mouth to avoid puking at the sight that awaited her.

Over a dozen people, people she’d known for the last two years, who’d shared her dream of global competition in the sport they’d grown up with, lay sprawled across the unburnt semi-circle of the gym floor. Their faces were frozen in expressions of shock, wide eyes staring out sightlessly from rapidly paling flesh. What really made the Pink Ranger’s stomach turn, though, were the jagged holes that had appeared in their bodies, the seared edges blackening their clothes. Some of them had been completely cauterized; others, like the one driven through the chest of a tall girl with blonde hair, slowly seeped blood crusted with tiny, blackened bits of roasted flesh.

Fighting the bile rising in her throat, Kim pulled herself to her feet and found with amazed relief that three people were still standing, their bodies still whole, looking around them in confusion. The two people Kim had tackled were behaving much the same way – disoriented and groggy, as if just rising from a long sleep. She helped them up and looked around at the survivors. Sean stood off to one side, gaping down at a body in front of him which had taken a bolt straight through the face, burning away much of the nose and eyes and leaving bits of charred bone and brain matter splattered on the floor around it. Two others, a guy Kim knew only as Matt and a broad-shouldered African-American girl named Hannah Spencer who had been giving her pointers on her vault, were nearby, staring down at themselves as though in awe of their intact bodies. Of the two people she was pulling up from the floor, only one was familiar: Stephanie Miller, the skinny girl with waist length black hair to whom Sean had credited his accusation of her steroid usage. The other was a boy whose face was familiar to Kim but whose name escaped her completely at the moment.

Kim instinctively reached for her wrist to call for a ride home only to find it bare.

“Shit!” She hissed to herself. She had left her communicator in the locker room with her other clothes after it had dug into her wrist during floor exercise practice yesterday. “Hey guys!” She waved her arm in the air to get the attention of everyone left. Hannah had bent double and put her hands on her knees, and looked up at Kim right in the middle of vomiting on the floor. The sudden change of trajectory sent her sick splashing across the face of a body that lay before her. Stephanie’s eyes were pooling with panicked tears, her breath coming in hitched gasps as she pulled strands of scorched, bloody hair out of her face. Kim waited until all of their shell-shocked eyes were locked on her before she continued.

“Normally I would say this might sound crazy but considering what just happened I think we’ve moved past that,” she said, stepping carefully over a body to stand with her back to the glimmering purple rock. “We need to get to the locker room. I can call for a, uh…” she fumbled for a moment to find the right word. “For a rescue. It sounds a little weird but you’re just gonna have to trust me.” Receiving only blank stares from most of them, Kim sighed a little. _Damn I’m rusty at that. Never thought there’d come a time when I wished I was_ better _at lying._

Finally, Matt spoke up, his voice a gravelly baritone that resonated even as it trembled slightly. “And just how the fuck are we supposed to do that? In case you haven’t noticed, that…” he gestured emphatically toward the purple projectile. “Glowing purple landmine thingy is blocking the door.”

“W-we could just try to r-roll it out of the way,” Stephanie said quietly, wringing her hands in front of her.

“You wanna touch that thing without a Hazmat suit? Be my guest,” Sean retorted with a dismissive snort. As he spoke, Kim watched the boy she didn’t know pick up a piece of burnt metal from a destroyed apparatus; it was roughly cylindrical, about four feet long and as big around as her forearm. The boy hefted it in his hand, testing its weight. When he seemed satisfied, he moved toward the doorway and extended the piece of metal toward the shining purple rock.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, what the hell are you doing?” Matt shouted at him, diving to one side as though covering from another attack. The boy didn’t even acknowledge that he’d been spoken to, simply leaned forward until he tapped the strange rock with the tip of the metal shard. Almost instantly, the tip of the metal piece began to liquefy, dripping molten steel onto the concrete floor. The unfamiliar boy let out a guttural roar of pain and reared back, the remnants of the piece of metal clattering to the floor only to melt right before their eyes. The boy gripped his left hand in his right, his teeth clenched together as his face contorted with agony.

“Hey!” Kim darted over and squatted in front of the boy, gripping his face in both hands. “Are you OK? What’s your name?”

The boy just stared at her, not saying a word.

“His name is Blake,” Hannah said from behind her, choking back a sob. “He’s deaf.”

“Deaf, huh?” Kim rocked back onto her heels, letting go of Blake’s face and making several rapid motions with her hands. To her surprise, the boy let out a small chuckle and made a few half-hearted motions with his uninjured hand. It wasn’t perfect, but Kim got the gist. She rose to her feet and tore a strip of cloth from her tattered leotard. Blake held out his left hand and slowly uncurled his fingers, revealing an angry red burn that had begun to blister and peel, oozing bloody pus from a ragged trench in the flesh. His entire palm looked like a firecracker had gone off in his open hand. Cringing at the wound, Kim wrapped the piece of cloth around it as tightly as she could, fighting not to gag as the pus began to soak through. She helped Blake to his feet and turned to find Sean and Matt dragging the springboard from the beam over to the doorway.

“What are they doing?” Kim asked Hannah quietly. The other girl wrapped her arms around herself and shuddered.

“They’re gonna try to jump over that thing to get to the door.” Hannah shrugged noncommittally and gazed past Kim into empty space.

“Hannah,” Kim said gently, taking the girl by the shoulder. Bloodshot eyes flicked weakly in her direction. “Listen to me. Everything’s gonna be fine. We are all gonna get out of here and I am gonna get us home. OK?” When Hannah didn’t move, just kept on staring right through her, Kim shook the other girl a little and gestured at the springboard. “Come on. That thing is your bitch; I don’t know anybody who can get as much air off that thing as you can.” Hannah smiled a little at that, and Kim finally saw a hint of focus fade back into her eyes. She clapped the girl on the shoulder and turned in time to see Matt charge the springboard, plant his feet on it, leap into the air and execute a flawless front layout with a half twist before landing lightly on both feet in front of the door.

“Show off,” Sean grumbled. Matt grinned, took a showy bow, and leaned backward without looking behind him, pushing the doors open and gesturing through them like a butler.

Kim shook her head. _Boys._ She watched as Sean, then Blake jumped off the board and landed next to Matt near the door. She turned to Hannah again.

“Let’s go, girl. You got this.”

Hannah nodded slowly and stepped into position. She took a deep breath and charged the board, pumping her arms frantically back and forth. As she neared it, some kind of muscle memory must’ve kicked in because she launched into a round-off back handspring and rocketed off the board, clearing the rock by nearly four feet. She flew so high she nearly hit the wall above the door and had to stick a hand out to slow herself down. Matt caught her and lowered her to the floor with an appreciative whistle.

Kim raised an eyebrow and glanced at Stephanie. “Go ahead. I’m right behind you.”

As the other girl began her approach, Kim thought something seemed off about her movements somehow. Was she favoring one foot over the other? Why was she moving so slowly? Kim opened her mouth to shout a warning, to scream at Stephanie to stop and try again, but she never got a chance. Stephanie leapt for the board, but Kim knew her aim was off from the moment her feet left the floor. She had jumped from too far back, hadn’t been moving fast enough, and tried to compensate by jumping further than she should have.

It was too much.

Stephanie’s trajectory was so off that only her heels came down on the board, lending her no power at all. She toppled forward, her arms spread wide, slamming into the rock as though trying to hug it. Less than a second later, Stephanie’s skin began to turn runny, like melting ice cream. A faint purple flame broke out over the entire surface of her body, and she howled in pain, falling to the floor in a writhing heap as her hair began falling out of skin too soft to hold it, her clawing hands ripping shreds of flesh off of her bones. It didn’t take long for every bit of flesh to melt into a thick, syrupy red puddle. Not even her skeleton was spared; it burned until all that remained was a little mound of powder, the vicious purple flame claiming every bit of her.

When it was over, Kim finally allowed herself to puke.

It seemed like hours before Sean was finally able to tear his eyes away from what was left of Stephanie and turn to Kim.

“Kim,” he said softly. “Come on. We gotta go.”

Kim glanced up at him, blinking rapidly as though she could scrub the image of Stephanie’s death off of her eyeballs. “Yeah,” she replied, shaking her head a little. She let out a long breath and dashed toward the springboard, putting every ounce of power she could manage into one jump. Kim somersaulted over the rock and dove to the floor, landing hands first. She bent her elbows, tucked her chin, and rolled through the open doorway and across the hallway into the corridor beyond. The others turned and regarded her quizzically as she popped up to her feet, bouncing a little from her excess momentum.

Sean reached her first. “Are you sure you’re not on steroids?”

Kim laughed. “I’m not sure of much at all right now.”

Hannah and Blake had reached them by then; Kim saw over Hannah’s shoulder that Matt was still leaning in the doorway, staring back into the gym. Hannah turned and called to him across the intersecting hallway. “Matt, we need to move!”

“Wha?” Matt jerked a little as though Hannah had punched him instead of simply calling to him. He rubbed his eyes with the back of one hand and blinked a few times. “Oh. Yeah.” He let go of the doorframe and started across the intersection between the two hallways. He was only halfway there when it happened.

The five young gymnasts were so distracted by the horrifying deaths they’d just witnessed that none of them heard the incoming rumble of the blazing red fireball that raced toward them. It bounced once, its angle carrying it slightly upward, away from the ground, and crashed through the walls of the gym building, destroying everything in its way. The fireball moved so fast that by the time Matt even realized something was coming, all he had time to do was turn and have his vision filled by an oncoming red missile, a small gasp of surprise the only thing he could manage before it plowed into him with bone-crushing force. The four people gathered on the other side off the hallway barely even saw the fireball; to them, a red blur had just zipped by before them and then Matt was just…gone. All that was left were two smoking feet that terminated in ragged stumps just below the knees. Everything else just disappeared, faster than any of them could comprehend.

Hannah gasped and staggered back, her legs trembling as she fought to stay standing. She fell into Blake and Sean, the three of them tumbling onto their asses on the floor. Kim gaped openmouthed at the spot where Matt’s feet still stood on the floor, the irregular nubs of bone protruding from them blackened by the heat of the projectile.

“Holy shit,” she whispered, wiping a strand of hair behind her ear. Her hand froze on the way back down to her side. Her hair had been tied into a tight bun when she had started practice that morning; there was no way she would’ve needed to tuck any hair behind her ear unless…

Tentatively, gingerly, as though the floor were about to give way beneath her, Kim stepped out into the hallway where the fireball had come through and glanced from side to side. Sunlight filtered in through twin holes in the exterior walls of the training facility, a warm, humid cross breeze flitting from one opening to the other. The tattered shreds of Kim’s pink leotard flapped gently in the moving air, which carried on it the undeniable smells of blood and burning rubber. Peering out through the hole nearest her, Kim could see a fire burning in the distance; if she craned her ears, she could hear the panicked screams of people fleeing for their lives, the occasional deep boom of another fireball impacting Earth. She stood there until the tears that had begun to pool in her eyes had been blown dry, leaving dual circles of chill on her face. Her teeth clamped down on her lower lip and a fresh wave of resolve slowed her breathing and steadied her legs.

“I am not gonna fucking die in here,” Kim whispered forcefully to herself, her hands balling into fists. She turned and ran over to her three companions; Blake and Sean were just helping Hannah to her feet. Kim skidded to a stop beside them, clapping one hand down on Blake’s shoulder, the other on Hannah’s. She gestured down the hallway with her head. “The locker room is right there. Now I don’t know about the rest of you but I’m ready to go the hell home. You coming or what?”

Receiving three surprised nods in return, Kim smiled and started sprinting down the hallway, veering left toward the heavy door at the far end of the hall. She heard the footsteps of the others behind her, their breathing coming in ragged gasps as their feet slapped against the concrete floor. The door was right there, the handle glinting softly in the filtered sunlight. Kim reached for it, not slowing, her outstretched fingers curling in preparation to grip it.

The explosion threw her past the doorway, her body twisting and spiraling through the air as the shockwave tossed her aside like a rag doll. She landed hard on her right hip and rolled violently across the floor until her chest slammed into the wall, whipping her head forward. Kim’s forehead hit the wall so hard it rattled her teeth, her vision going red for a moment as her brain smacked against the inside of her skull. She groaned softly and pushed herself up to a seated position, supporting her weight on one extended arm.

The others had been thrown in the opposite direction; they were still rising uneasily to their feet, extricating their tangled limbs from each other, when Kim noticed the strange green dome that seemed to radiate out toward them from a point between her and the others, even with the doorway. She managed to get her feet beneath her and was pulling herself up by the windowsill, her white knuckles squeezing the edge of the wood, when the blue-green light reached the others. Sean reached out a hand to touch it only to watch the hand dissolve into nothing, as though it were a puzzle the thing had taken apart. Sean screamed in pain and shoved Blake and Hannah away as hard as he could with one hand, stumbling feebly away from the energy.

“RUN!” He cried, his voice made shrill by agony. Blake just stared at him, bewildered, but Hannah grabbed the deaf boy around the neck and wrenched him away, throwing him down the hallway ahead of her with almost preternatural strength before sprinting for the door herself. Sean tried to follow them, but his gait was awkward, his movements made jerky and uneven by the way he hugged the bloody stump of his left hand to his chest. He had to use his torso to balance himself like he normally would have with his arms, whipping his upper body back and forth as he ran, wheezing desperately, a trail of blood pattering the floor behind him.

It wasn’t enough. Halfway to the door, Sean stumbled and lost his balance, going down hard on one knee. Before he could even regain his wits, the blue-green wave was upon him. Sean looked up and made direct eye contact with Kim; as the wave passed over his body, and first his legs, then his right side began to crumble away, Kim thought she saw him give her the smallest of nods. Then his face contorted into a mask of agony and the rest of his body began to fall apart until there was nothing left but a few scraps of clothing and a small pile of dust in the hallway.

Kim tore her eyes away and made a move for the door. The wave had almost reached it; she watched Hannah and Blake sneak by it, the wave just missing their bodies as they edged around the doorframe into the locker room. Luckily for Kim, the door opened away from her. By the time she’d reached the doorframe, the wave had filled it up to waist height and was quickly moving forward.

She never even broke stride. Feet pounding the floor, the Pink Ranger sprinted toward the door with all the speed she could manage. At the last possible instant, just as she reached the wave, she swung her arms back and flew from the ground, diving through the small opening between the wave and the upper left corner of the door jamb. Her outstretched hands hit the ground first, and she let her momentum carry her feet over her head; the moment she felt them hit the floor, she bent her knees and sprang forward again, coming to a rest on the small concrete bench that jutted out from the front of the row of lockers. She pressed her back against the metal doors and held her breath, flattening herself as much as possible.

The wave dissipated less than a foot in front of her. Kim’s shoulders slumped with relief and she hopped down from the bench, noticing for the first time that the locker room was completely without a ceiling, every inch of the concrete and metal illuminated by sunlight. “Hannah!” She called into the room, scanning the numbers for her own locker. “Are you guys OK?”

The response came immediately. “We’re both OK. Blake’s with me.” A moment later the two of them came around the corner, Blake fitting what appeared to be some kind of hearing aid into his ear while Hannah fiddled with a small gold cross that hung from a chain around her neck. Kim smiled at them with relief as she found her locker and swung it open. There it was. Her communicator lay on top of her duffel bag, glinting in the sunlight. As she reached in to get it, she heard a _pop_ from high above her; Kim’s Ranger instincts kicked in and she dove to the ground, pulling her communicator and duffel bag out of the locker behind her as she went, and rolled under the concrete ledge. No sooner had she flattened herself to the floor, the duffel behind her head, than she saw a thick, silver liquid splash onto the floor.

“Hannah?” She called nervously. “Blake? What’s happening out there?” When no response came, Kim clipped her communicator to her wrist and spoke into it. “Hello? Zordon? Tommy, Alpha, anybody? This is Kimberly, it’s an emergency! Someone please, answer!” At first Kim got nothing but static, the panic in her voice rising steadily with every second. She squeezed the button on the small device down so hard it hurt the tip of her finger, screaming into the microphone. “Help! Somebody, please, answer! Help me!” She begged, her cries dissolving into horrified tears as her calls went unheeded.

Then, through the static, there came a single word.

“Kim?”

She had never been so happy to hear her own name in her entire life. It helped some that it was him that said it. “Tommy?”

She heard a squawking sound that was actually his ecstatic cheer; when he spoke again she could hear his smile, his wonderful smile. “Hey, Beautiful! We’ve been trying to find you forever! Are you OK?”

“Not that I’m not super excited to hear your voice, Handsome,” Kim grunted, sliding herself along the rough floor, pushing the duffel ahead of her, until she was clear of the silver liquid. “But why am I talking to you and not Zordon or Alpha?”

“Zordon’s talking to Jason in Geneva. He called in right before you did. Alpha…” Tommy’s voice trailed off and Kim stopped, her back raw from scraping across the floor.

“What? Tommy, what’s Alpha doing?”

Tommy took a long, shaky breath. “He’s still trying to track down Aisha. When the shit hit the fan something happened and we uh…we can’t get a lock on her life signs.”

“Oh my god,” Kim muttered as she rolled out from under the ledge and climbed to her feet. “Tommy what’s happening? Did you say Zordon was talking to Jason? Why? Were they attacked too? _What the fuck is going on?_ ” Her last words were almost shouted, another batch of tears threatening to burst forth from her eyes.

“I don’t know, babe. Rocky’s not taking this so well, Adam and Tanya had to take him out of the room while we kept searching. I’m just so glad you’re OK. Hold on a second and I’ll get you out of there-“

“Tommy, wait!” Kim said, pulling her duffel out and slinging it over her shoulder. “I have two other people with me who need evacuation, their names are…” Her voice trailed off as she turned to find Blake and Hannah standing frozen like statues, staring up into the sky, their bodies glowing a faint shade of silver. “What the hell?” She waved a hand in front of Hannah’s face. Nothing.

“Kim, we’re not reading anybody nearby,” Tommy said. “Your life signs are the only ones for almost half a mile.”

“What? That’s impossible, I’m looking right at them!” Kim exclaimed. She held two fingers under Hannah’s nose. “She’s breathing and everything!”

“Kim, I’m telling you, there are no other readings,” Tommy replied impatiently. “Now hold still and let me teleport you home.”

“No!” She screamed, reaching out to grab Hannah’s shoulder. “I’m not leaving them here!” The other girl’s body felt strange – what Kim could touch was freezing cold, but there was also a feeling of slight sponginess, as though Kim’s hand was about to fall through the other girl’s skin. Ignoring that for the moment, Kim threw another hand out to grip Blake’s wrist, where she felt the same cold and permeability. The last thing she saw before the world turned pink and disappeared was the frozen bodies of her two companions falling away from her, shrinking in their places on the site of the massacre as she was teleported out. Even though they’d been touching, she realized with mounting horror that she’d left both of them behind.

* * *

 **Turkish Airlines Flight 1623  
** **Somewhere over West Africa**  
 **August 28, 2012  
** **Approx. 5:30 PM, Local Time**

Aisha Campbell hated flying.

She knew she shouldn’t think about things that way, that hate, as her Grandma put it, was “ugly and wasteful;” but damn it, sitting for thirteen hours in a tiny, pressurized steel tube thirty thousand feet off the ground with her ass sticking to the uncomfortable seat and three screaming babies driving nails into her ears, she couldn’t think of any other way to put it. She fucking hated flying.

Aisha groaned and leaned back in her seat, pressing her pillow over her face in a futile attempt to block out the crying, the engine roar, and the far-too-bright cabin lights. She was really starting to reconsider whether this flight was worth the hundred bucks or so it had saved her over the faster route home. She had three connecting flights to catch and none of them so much as served food.

_Yeah, that whole “Never use Ranger technology for personal gain” thing is looking like a crock of shit right about now_ , Aisha thought, dropping her hands into her lap with an exasperated sigh. She glanced out the window to her right at the barren landscape beneath them, dotted with small patches of shade by the odd tiny cloud that floated lazily by. It had been pretty much the same view for the last three hours, and all she had to look forward to was the infinite blue of the ocean. She looked down and set her watch to California time. She did some quick math and realized her flight had left at just after 8 AM in Angel Grove, and she still wouldn’t get there until tomorrow. Fantastic.

“God, kill me now…” she muttered.

“Careful what you wish for,” the guy next to her said. He looked a few years older than Aisha, his shaved head shining under the harsh cabin lights. “Some of us would like to make it home alive, if you don’t mind.”

Aisha glanced at the guy sidelong and raised an eyebrow. “And _this_ was the mode of transportation you trusted to get you there? You wanna talk about tempting fate…”

“Actually,” the guy said, shifting his weight so he could turn to look directly at her. “Air travel is one of the safest possible ways to travel. You’re more likely to die driving to the airport than in the plane you board when you get there.”

“It’s a little frightening that you knew that so quickly,” she replied, making eye contact. “I’m guessing you either work for the NTSB or you’re a salesman for Boeing.”

“Actually I’m more like George Clooney from _Up in the Air_ ,” he laughed. “I spend more time on planes than I do in my own house.”

“I don’t know whether to pity you or laugh at your stupidity,” Aisha said with a smile. “And I hate to break this to you but you’re nowhere near as hot as George Clooney.”

“What?” The guy’s eyes widened in mock surprise. “Those bastards at work lied to me!” The two of them broke into laughter at that, and Aisha tossed her pillow onto the empty window seat beside her and extended a hand.

“I’m Aisha.”

“Jack,” he offered, taking her hand. “So what brings an American your age way out here?”

Aisha paused for a moment, slightly taken aback. It was a perfectly normal question but for someone in her position he may as well have asked her to solve a quantum mechanics equation. “I, uh…I’ve been visiting family,” she said quickly, hating the taste of the lie on her tongue. The flavor seemed to get bitterer every time.

“Oh,” he said, looking entirely unconvinced; luckily for her he didn’t push it. “I was here with a volunteer group that travels around the world and help improve medical infrastructure in other countries. We’re basically Doctors Without Borders but we’re also Without Budget and Without Any Level of Corporate Sponsorship.”

Aisha giggled quietly before she suddenly stopped and raised a finger. “Wait a second. Let me see if I understand something. You’re a doctor named Jack, you’re sitting in row 23 on an 8:15 flight, and you’re telling me I _shouldn’t_ be worried about plane crashes?”

“Well if we were flying over the South Pacific I would’ve said something different,” he replied with a twinkle in his eye. “But here I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”

“Famous last words,” she retorted. He smiled and reached into the backpack that sat at his feet, pulling out an iPod that had seen far better days.

“I’m going to try and get some sleep, I find it helps with jet lag and makes the plane ride go faster. Two birds, one stone and all that.” Aisha nodded and watched as Jack inserted the earbuds into his ears, leaned back and closed his eyes. After less than five minutes he was snoring softly.

“Lucky son of a bitch,” she whispered, turning again to gaze out the window. After a moment she grabbed her pillow, unbuckled her seatbelt and slid over into the empty seat right next to the window. She leaned her forehead against the sticky plastic wall of the cabin and stared blankly at the Earth below, letting her eyes drift into and out of focus. After an indeterminate amount of time, something snapped her back to reality – her unfocused eyes had picked something out of the landscape like a magic picture.

A shadow lay over a patch of ground off the port side of the plane. It was jagged, irregular in shape, and frighteningly massive in size. Aisha frowned and slowly let her eyes pan upward toward the source. When she finally saw it, she let out a small gasp of shock and clamped a hand over her mouth.

It was some kind of floating fortress, seemingly constructed from a random jumble of mismatched parts that protruded out of it at odd angles, its entire surface a single pane of glistening black glass except for the parts that appeared designed to reflect light back at the observer. Aisha had to squint in order to see it properly, the glare so intense it nearly covered the entire thing.

“What the hell?” She whispered, her breath leaving a cloudy spot on the window. The levitating monolith wasn’t moving, wasn’t doing much of anything except just sitting there, it…

No. Wait. The surface of the thing began to twinkle, spots of different sizes and colors flashing across the surface following no perceivable pattern. As the Purple Ranger looked on, the light show began to speed up, increasing in both intensity and frequency as thousands of spots of color scattered along the polished black glass. Soon the flashes were so fast they seemed to bleed together, until the whole vessel glowed a brilliant, blinding white, so bright it filled the entire cabin of the plane; at this point other passengers had begun to notice. Aisha heard several shocked exclamations in languages she didn’t speak. She pressed her forehead to the glass and watched, awestruck, as dozens of streaking balls of multicolored fire erupted from the thing, zooming toward the Earth too fast to be falling naturally. One, tinted a disarming shade of turquoise, flew much more horizontally than vertically, tracing an arc through the sky that brought it just behind the tail of the plane. Aisha craned her neck in an attempt to see it, but the window severely limited her peripheral vision.

Suddenly she heard what sounded like a bass drum thumping, and the plane was rocked by a violent tremor, people and luggage thrown roughly forward by a mysterious turbulence. Several people screamed, the babies scattered throughout the cabin wailing in terror. Aisha felt her head crash against the seat in front of her, stars bursting in her eyes for a moment before she pulled herself to her feet and grabbed Jack by the shoulder. He glanced up at her, his face frozen in shock; she gripped a handful of his shirt and dragged him out of the seat, practically throwing him into the aisle.

“We need to move!” She shouted over the noise, some distant Ranger instinct alerting her to some vague approaching threat. He furrowed his brow in confusion. Aisha swung her legs out over the seat and set herself down gently in the aisle, fighting to keep her balance as the plane began to shake beneath her. She gave Jack a gentle shove toward the front of the plane. “Go! Now!”

Just as Jack seemed to find his feet again and stagger forward down the rocking aisle, a wall of blue-green light appeared at the back of the plane, moving quickly toward them. Jack stopped and stared at it in awe, his mouth working but making no sound. Aisha spun around and watched the oncoming wave move toward them as it approached the first row of seats.

The first person the wall of light touched was a flight attendant who stood in the aisle, trying to hold the overhead compartment closed. Faster than Aisha could even move, the blue-green light had consumed the woman entirely, allowing only time for a small, choked cry of pain before reducing her to a tiny mound of dust on the aisle floor.

Aisha whirled and threw herself into Jack, shoving him down the aisle in front of her. People all around them were diving aside as they charged them like angry bulls.

“Get up!” She called to them, desperately racing toward the nose of the plane. “You have to move! Hurry!”

There was a clamor of footsteps, grunts, screams and thuds as people leapt into the aisle, climbing over each other in a frantic attempt to escape the wall of death that chased them. Over the rest of the noise there came the sound of an occasional agonized shriek, followed by a muffled twang like a guitar string being plucked as another passenger succumbed to the energy wave. Aisha heard one of the crying babies abruptly go silent and shuddered as she drove herself ever forward, one hand on Jack’s back while she pushed off of passing seats with the other, her footsteps pounding on the hard floor of the cabin as she ran. The plane shook viciously again, throwing suitcases out of the overhead bins; Aisha just managed to duck a heavy black trunk that came hurtling toward her. She heard a sickening smack from behind her as it collided with another passenger.

Finally, mercifully, she and Jack reached the curtains separating coach from first class. Aisha could literally feel the heat of the energy wave washing over her as she planted her feet and dove through the curtain, bracing herself for impact. She came down on her right shoulder and rolled to her feet only to see the wave a mere six inches in front of her. Aisha squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the end…and nothing happened. All she felt was a brief blast of hot air flow over her face; she popped one eye open and took in the sight of the back half of the plane. All that was left of any of the people who had just been standing there were small piles of dust that spilled out of the seats and littered the aisle.

She didn’t hear any babies crying anymore.

“Fuck,” Aisha said, her breath catching in her throat. Hot tears began to sting her eyes as she climbed shakily to her feet, supporting her weight on the nearest seat, gripping the fabric with rapidly whitening knuckles. Jack came up behind her and leaned forward to lay a hand on her shoulder when a huge red blur passed within centimeters of her and the entire back half of the plane disappeared right in front of Aisha’s face. Daggers of cold air whipped against her exposed skin, the remaining half of the plane yanking them roughly to the left as it descended into a plummeting spiral, tumbling out of control toward the ground.

Aisha felt herself pulled forward, her feet teetering precariously over the edge of the destroyed plane as the aggressive fingers of the wind clawed at her hungrily, threatening to suck her out into the open sky. She wind-milled her arms desperately, but the act had no effect; she would’ve gone right over the edge if Jack hadn’t thrown an arm around her chest just under her outstretched arms and pulled her back into what remained of the fuselage. He spun on one heel, twisting her back onto the floor, where she landed sprawled on her ass, her hands pressed against the floor as the plane plunged toward the ground. Jack stood before her, his body reduced to a dark silhouette by the sunlight that now flooded the cabin.

“You OK?” He called over the roar of the wind. Aisha winced and tried to stand.

“If we land on some creepy island and I get eaten by a smoke monster I will never forgive you,” she said, stumbling toward him as she raised her communicator. It was officially time to get the hell out of here.

In her haste to escape, Aisha had completely lost track of any of the other people on the plane, and thus it came as a great surprise to her when a man went tumbling past her out of nowhere, slamming against seats and walls as he soared toward the hole. The man’s foot caught Jack square in the jaw, and the two of them toppled out of the hole into the unforgiving air.

Aisha never even stopped to think. She raced toward the hole and dove out into the atmosphere, pressing her hands together to streamline herself as she fell toward Jack’s twisting form. The distance between them closed slowly but steadily, the whipping wind snatching any moisture from her open mouth, leaving her tongue flailing absently against a throat made scratchy and raw by the fierce current. Aisha felt her heart beating against her chest, her blood thumping in her ears as she finally caught up to Jack and reached a hand out to grab him.

She was only a few inches away when her vision began to color with sparks of purple, her surroundings growing muted by the crackling sound of teleportation.

“No!” She cried, her words immediately torn away by the rushing wind. Aisha could only watch as Jack fell away from her, his body hurtling toward the distant Earth as she was yanked away, her grasping fingers curling futilely around nothing but air.

When she regained her wits again, Aisha found herself on the hard concrete floor of the Command Center; she could hear the soft beeping of computers and Alpha’s worried babbling in the background as the others clustered around her.

“You know,” she said as she struggled to a kneeling position. “You guys’ timing really sucks.”


	3. The Downfall of Us All

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very AU from the moment Zeo started; slightly AU from the moment Jason, Zack and Trini left. Takes place midway through Zeo, only Zeo didn’t happen. Jason, Trini and Zack are still attending the Peace Conference in Geneva, Kim is still in Florida training for the Pan Globals, and Aisha is still in Africa. When they left, however, their powers weren’t transferred – they still have them, and five new powers were created for their replacements. Also, that whole letter thing didn’t happen, either. The current team, led by Tommy, is Billy, Rocky, Adam, Kat and Tanya.
> 
> This story assumes that the Rangers were juniors in high school when they got their original powers, meaning they are currently in their second year of college, putting their ages at approximately 20-21.

**“No matter under what circumstances you leave it, home does not cease to be home.”  
** **-Joseph Brodsky**

**Angel Grove Youth Center  
** **Angel Grove, California  
** **August 28, 2012  
** **10:15 AM PDT**

“God, and I thought high school homework was hard.” Rocky DeSantos pushed his computer away with a frustrated grunt and leaned forward onto his elbows, digging the heel of one hand into his eyes. Adam Park paused in his steady typing from across the table and glanced at his friend over the top of his monitor with an amused smirk.

“Well it might’ve helped if you had actually taken some notes every once in a while instead of using class time to look up the Playboy mansion on Google Earth.”

“Right,” Rocky retorted. “And remind me again how long you stayed awake in our last History lecture?”

Adam scoffed. “Which one of us is having trouble again? You know, I was going to offer to help you, but if you’re just gonna be an asshole I don’t see why I should bother.”

Rocky shrugged. “Whatever. I’ll just get Billy to help me.” He pulled his computer closer and turned to look over his shoulder.

Adam’s eyes widened. “Rocky, wait –“

“Hey Billy!” Rocky called out across the busy Youth Center. On the other side of the main exercise room, Billy Cranston was practice sparring with Tommy Oliver on a large floor mat, their movements throwing erratic shadows on the brightly-lit floor; the Center was built with a plentitude of windows – the majority of the light that filled the place on a day like this was natural sunlight. Billy glanced up at the sound of his name just in time for Tommy to launch into a sweep kick that caught the boy in blue completely off guard. Rocky winced as Billy toppled to the mat, letting out a small grunt of pain and surprise as the wind was knocked out of his lungs.

“Smooth,” Adam muttered, turning back to his laptop.

“Shit!” Rocky hissed to himself. He hopped out of his chair and jogged across the Youth Center to the edge of the mat. “You OK, Billy?”

“Ow,” Billy groaned, taking the hand that Tommy extended and hoisting himself shakily to his feet. “Ernie is in dire need of new safety equipment. These mats are dangerously threadbare.”

Tommy stared at Billy blankly for a moment; the other boy laughed and cleared his throat. “Sorry. I forgot I still do that sometimes. Ernie needs new mats. These aren’t worth shit anymore.”

Tommy laughed. “Yeah, Jase and I kind of wore ‘em out.” The two of them turned to see Rocky waiting at the edge of the mat. He regarded them for a moment before repeating his question to Billy.

“You OK, man?”

“I’d be a lot better if you hadn’t distracted me. Dick move, dude.”

Rocky nodded, grimacing. “Then I guess this would be a bad time to ask you for help with my homework?”

Billy responded with a half-serious glare and pivoted on his heel, striding off to the locker room and scooping up his bag as he went.

Rocky watched him go, his face slowly draining of color. “I’m gonna be horribly murdered in my sleep tonight, aren’t I?”

Tommy laughed. “Maybe not anything _that_ bad, but Billy can get very inventive when he’s pissed off. One time before you guys got here I pulled a practical joke on him that he didn’t find funny and he altered the voice modulator in my helmet so everything I said when I was morphed came out sounding like Barney. Took Trini and me three weeks to fix, mostly because Trini couldn’t stop laughing.”

Rocky smacked himself on the forehead. “Great. So I just put myself on the shit list of a pissed off genius with access to powerful alien technology and a revenge fetish. Fuck my life.”

“Fuck your life _hard_ ,” Adam added, coming up behind Rocky with a growing grin on his face. “I cannot _wait_ to see what Billy does to you.”

“Rocky’s life is fucked again?” The three young men turned their heads in unison toward the new voice that approached them. Tanya Sloan and Kat Hillard strolled arm-in-arm through the Youth Center, their free arms loaded with textbooks. Tanya flashed her winning smile and continued. “Damn, we missed the fun part.”

“He distracted Billy while he and Tommy were sparring and Billy went down hard because of it,” Adam explained, smirking at Rocky.

Kat sucked in a breath through her teeth. “Wow. Yep, you’re screwed.”

Tanya elbowed her in the ribs. “Don’t worry, Rocko, I’m sure you can talk Billy out of going all _Punisher_ on you.” Rocky raised his eyebrows hopefully; Tanya frowned thoughtfully and glanced back at Kat. “Wait. Nope. He’s doomed.”

“Christ, you guys, don’t be so supportive, you’re suffocating me.”

“You’re welcome,” Tommy said cheerfully, slapping Rocky on the back. “Now come on, guys, let’s go get some smoothies before we have to be in class.” The others nodded; as the group turned toward the counter, Tommy took Rocky by both shoulders and steered him through the crowd. He tilted his head back and shouted, “Make a hole! Dead man walking! Coming through!”

Rocky glared at Tommy and wrenched himself free just as Billy reappeared from the locker room and moved toward them. 

"Uh-oh, Rock, here he comes,” Kat whispered in Rocky’s ear. “Try hiding behind Tommy. You’re certainly short enough.”

Rocky was just opening his mouth to retort when the first shockwave knocked the group to the floor and blew out every window in the Youth Center.

Tommy poked his head out from where Tanya, Adam and Kat had landed on top of him and grunted. “Fuck, Billy, I know you’re pissed but isn’t an earthquake a little extreme?”

“That wasn’t me,” Billy said, rising shakily to his feet and dusting off his jeans. “And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t an earthquake, either.”

“Well since Rocky didn’t ask anyone to pull his finger in the last five minutes,” Tanya joked, drawing a glare from Rocky, “then what –“

The far wall of the Youth Center exploded inward. Huge chunks of concrete, sheetrock and glass were flung into the air, raining down on the people inside. Weight machines, tables and chairs were thrown across the room, slamming into helpless bystanders with devastating force. Peering through the spreading cloud of dust that had begun to fill up the space, obscuring the gaping hole where the wall once stood, Tommy could make out the broken shapes of bodies, debris and rubble from the building littering the floor. He stumbled forward a few steps, desperately scanning the ground before him for anyone showing signs of life. He hadn’t gone far before he brushed against a piece of debris and felt something flop against his ankle; bracing himself for the worst, Tommy clenched his teeth and glanced down.

An arm had fallen against his foot, pale, slender fingers scraping on the floor. Tommy saw the chipped pink polish on the fingernails, the small silver ring around the middle finger. He followed the arm’s length with his eyes, only to find a ragged, bloody stump where the arm should have met the shoulder, a small nub of bone protruding from the flesh. Tommy’s eyes widened in horror; he felt bile rise in his throat as he kicked the limb away and staggered backward until he bumped into Adam hard enough to knock both of them back to the ground.

Tommy landed hard on Adam’s stomach; he heard a soft crunch, and then Adam let out a muffled grunt of pain. Tommy quickly rolled off and lay on his back for a moment, squeezing his eyes shut as he fought to get his breathing under control. Suddenly he felt himself being yanked to his feet, Rocky and Billy grabbing an arm each and lifting him bodily off the floor. Kat and Tanya had knelt beside Adam, who had sat up to reveal the shard of glass that had pierced his back just above the hip, less than an inch to the left of his spine. Kat reached out and gingerly pinched it between her fingers, but just that tiny bit of contact was enough to make Adam hiss in pain, his face contorting into an agonized scowl.

“We’ll have to take care of it back at the Command Center,” Billy said, putting Adam in a sort of loose half-nelson and pulling him to his feet. The boy in green teetered badly on unstable legs; Billy was basically holding him up. “Let’s go.”

“Wait!” Tommy’s hand shot out and grabbed Billy’s wrist before he could touch his communicator. “We have to get these people out of here. Just let Adam go back and get help.”

Adam nodded gratefully and squeezed his communicator, disappearing in a column of green light that went unnoticed by the frantic crowd. Tommy brushed some dust out of his eyes and turned back to the others. “OK, guys. Evacuation time.”

“I think they’re one step ahead of you,” Kat replied, gesturing toward the mob of people who had begun charging toward the exit, climbing over each other and throwing others out of the way in their rush to escape.

Rocky stepped forward and cupped his hands around his mouth, preparing to yell something at the crowd, but just as he took a deep breath, a shadow fell over them. The five friends turned and looked out through the shattered windows of the Youth Center to see an enormous ball of orange fire plummeting toward them. As it got closer, the very air around them began to rumble and heat up, the rising temperature keeping steady pace with the intensifying vibrations. The five Rangers stared at the object in awe.

“Well,” Rocky said softly. “That can’t be good.”

“ _Get down!_ ” Tommy shouted. As one, the group spun around and sprinted across the room, leaping up the three stairs in their way and charging toward the counter. Billy put his hands on the shoulders of two young women who moved in front of him and steered them toward where the Rangers were going; Tanya scooped up a little boy who sat crying at one of the remaining upright tables as the group ran past, racing toward the bar.

None of them were able to outrun the explosion. The fireball landed just outside the wall of shattered windows and detonated with the force of a ballistic missile, releasing a massive shockwave that picked up the Rangers like paper and flung them across the counter. Tommy slid over the slick surface and went flying past, crashing headfirst onto the tile floor. He felt his teeth slam against each other; stars swam through his vision as he rolled slowly to a stop.

Tanya gripped the little boy close to her chest; the shockwave sent her careening over the counter, and since her hands were full, all she could do was tuck her chin to her chest and brace herself. She landed on her shoulder blades atop the counter and rolled off the other side, her momentum carrying her across the floor until she slid into the back wall. Suddenly, Tanya felt a stabbing pain in her upper right arm. She released her hold on the boy and lifted her arm to discover a thick flow of blood draining from a deep stab wound in her flesh; scanning the surrounding floor, it didn’t take her long to find the nail that protruded from a broken piece of 2x4 that lay abandoned against the wall. The boy took one look at the blood pouring out of her injury and dashed away, his face white with panic. “Wait! Come back!” Tanya called after him desperately, wincing as she tried to put weight on her arm. “Ow!” She yelped, bracing herself with her left arm. “Son of a bitch.” As quickly as she could, Tanya tore a shred of fabric from her silver top and began wrapping it around the wound.

At the moment the shockwave hit, the two women Billy had shoved in front of him staggered forward and tumbled to the ground. The Blue Ranger himself was sent flying over top of them, crashing into the cash register and the soda fountains as he bounced across the counter and hit the floor chest-first. The air was immediately knocked out of him; he lay there gasping for a moment, gradually beginning to notice the multiple lacerations and bruises that covered his upper body, the machinery he’d been thrown into pounding his flesh and ripping his clothing to shreds. As he pushed himself to his hands and knees, the heavy antique register Ernie kept on the counter toppled over and fell a good two feet to land squarely between Billy’s shoulder blades. Billy felt something pop, and the agonizing pain of joint and bone tearing free from muscle turned his vision blurry and made the muscles in his jaw clench involuntarily. He crumpled to the floor again, the machine still on top of him, his face slamming into the tile. Something in his face gave, and his glasses shattered, spilling off his face onto the floor.

The jolt of the impact caught Kat entirely off guard. She felt herself lifted off the ground just as she approached the counter, and thus there wasn’t enough room for her to clear it entirely. Kat let out a choked gasp of pain and surprise as her thighs hit the edge of the counter; her body was flipped violently forward, squishing her breasts painfully under her weight, and she wind-milled over the bar to land hard on her tailbone, feeling something give as she collided with the ground. She felt her teeth bite into her tongue; the taste of blood filled her mouth. Kat moved to stand up, but her legs wouldn’t obey her – any attempt to elicit movement from them left her only a wave of fresh pain as a result. She slumped back against the counter, spat out a mouthful of blood, and sucked in air, a few hot tears of fear and anger filling up the corners of her eyes. After taking a quick moment to collect herself, Kat pressed her palms against the filthy floor and started to push herself up again. Then she heard the screams.

Rocky had been the furthest of the Rangers from the counter when the shockwave hit; as a result, his arc peaked at a point too far back from the bar to carry him over it. Instead, Rocky slammed into the outer edge of the counter, the sharp edge digging painfully into the space between two of his ribs. He felt several cracks and a flare of intense agony shot through his chest as he toppled to the floor in a heap. Grimacing, clapping a hand over his side – which hurt if he even so much as breathed – Rocky glanced up to see the two women Billy had been trying to help huddled beneath the lip of the counter, cowering pitifully against each other. Gripping his injured ribs with one hand, Rocky pulled himself up to his knees and crawled over to them. “Hey!” He said gently between strained breaths. “It’s gonna be OK. Come on, we have to get out of here before-“ One of the women screamed and pointed frantically over Rocky’s shoulder. He whirled around to see a pillar of fire hurtling directly toward them, not bothering to chew up the scenery around it but extending in their exact direction like a homing missile. Rocky’s jaw dropped. “Holy shit!” He grabbed one of the women by the shirt and tried to pull her up, but she refused to let go of her companion, who appeared to have gone completely catatonic from shock. “Come on, we have to –“ Rocky dared another glance back over his shoulder and realized that the flame had closed on them, so close now he could feel the blistering heat radiating off of it. He jumped to his feet, trying with all the strength he had in one hand to drag the woman behind him, but she wrenched away from him with such force that Rocky was left with a torn shred of her shirt in his hand. Before he’d even had time to process what had just happened, the flame had moved to within feet of him. Gritting his teeth, Rocky planted one hand on the counter and vaulted over it, feeling the ball of fire pass horrifyingly close to his back; he felt a powerful blast of heat viciously assault the exposed flesh on the back of his neck, but he managed to just barely outrun the surging fire and land mostly intact behind the counter. The flame charged past overhead, blasting its way through the far wall. Just as Rocky was about to stand up to check on the two women he’d left behind, he heard the terrible shrieks of anguish from beyond the bar.

Rocky exchanged worried glances with Kat before the two of them slowly peered over the surface of the counter. What they saw there was the stuff of nightmares.

The two women Billy and Rocky had tried to help had seen the fire pass over the counter and had attempted to make a run for it. They hadn’t made it far. Kat and Rocky could only watch as the flames consumed them entirely, covering every inch of their bodies in a blazing inferno. The screams coming from them barely sounded human anymore; by the time the flames had receded, all that was left was a pair of charred husks of flesh that crumbled to the Youth Center floor as though they were made of sand. Kat and Rocky sank back down behind the counter; Rocky ran a hand over his face and Kat clamped one of hers over her mouth, dry heaving through her fingers.

After a shocked moment, Rocky noticed Billy lying on the floor in front of them. He crawled forward and shoved the register off of his friend’s back with his shoulder. When Billy didn’t move, Rocky prodded him gently and called his name.

“Billy, come on, man, we gotta get movin,” Rocky said, shaking Billy a little harder. Kat dragged herself over to them and cradled Billy’s head in her lap. After a tense few minutes, Billy groaned softly and blinked rapidly a few times.

“Ow,” Billy moaned as he slowly sat up, still appearing a little disoriented. “What just happened?”

“Let’s just say Ernie finally called your tab,” Rocky replied with a wry smile. At Billy’s confused look, Kat leaned forward.

“Don’t worry,” she said in his ear. “The cash register came completely out of nowhere.” She and Rocky laughed weakly, but Billy could tell that it didn’t reach their eyes.

“Well at least it wasn’t Rocky’s fault for once,” Billy said, struggling to his feet. Kat and Rocky managed to stand as well, and glanced around at the destruction that encircled them.

“Hold on,” Rocky said suddenly. “Where are Tommy and Tanya?” The three of them looked around the area behind the counter, but their friends were nowhere to be seen.

“I think they went – _fuck!_ ” Billy tried to take a step forward only to have both his knees buckle beneath him. Kat and Rocky managed to catch an arm each, helping him back up and supporting his weight; Rocky winced as Billy’s weight came down on his injured side.

“We should teleport you out of here, Billy,” Kat said, grabbing Billy’s wrist to raise his communicator. Rocky clenched his teeth, the strain of holding Billy up starting to wear on his injured ribs, and cast several nervous glances around the ruined Youth Center, taking a moment to ponder what the hell was going on. A frustrated grunt from Kat drew his attention back.

“What is it?”

Kat thrust Billy’s communicator in Rocky’s face, as though she’d forgotten Billy was still attached to it. “Damn thing won’t work. It won’t teleport; it won’t even call the Command Center.”

Rocky went white. “You’re shitting me.” He grabbed Billy’s communicator with his free hand and squeezed every button as hard as he could.

Nothing.

“Damn it!” Rocky let Billy’s arm drop and wiped the sweat off his forehead. Billy examined his communicator thoughtfully and then looked at Rocky’s wrist.

“I have an idea,” Billy grunted. “You two try yours, see if anything happens.” Kat and Rocky shared a skeptical look behind Billy’s back. Rocky sighed, shrugged, and raised his wrist.

“What the hell.” He pushed the teleportation button and waited.

Nothing. Again.

“Well that was pointless,” Rocky muttered, letting his hand flop against his side.

“You’re already on my shit list, Rocky, don’t push your luck,” Billy growled. “The fact that none of our communicators work instead of just mine suggests that there’s some unusual external factor blocking our teleportation and transmission capabilities.”

“I’d say sentient fire from space qualifies as unusual,” Kat grumbled, shifting her weight from one leg to the other. “So what do we do?”

Billy thought for a moment. “Maybe if we can just put some distance between us and the source of interfering energy or radiation or…” Billy racked his brain for the word he was looking for, but his exhaustion and disorientation made even thinking hurt. “…whatever, we can teleport out before our communicators are rendered completely useless.”

“Right,” Rocky panted, scanning the destroyed room. “Maybe we should start by getting the hell out of the Youth Center. I’ve seen as much shit get blown up as the rest of us but this is just fucking depressing.”

“Heard that,” Kat said softly, hefting Billy’s arm around her shoulders. Together, their unsteady feet crunching and slipping on broken glass, chunks of concrete and the odd puddle of blood, the three Rangers stumbled forward through the devastation, headed for the front door.

* * *

As soon as the fire dissipated, Tommy had rolled to his knees just in time to see Tanya leap from the floor and chase after the kid who’d just slipped free of her grasp. Tommy stood and tried to run, but his head was throbbing; every step he took brought on a new wave of dizziness that almost knocked him back down again. Staggering clumsily forward, throwing a hand up to the wall to support himself, Tommy made his way slowly along the general direction he’d thought Tanya had taken. After an indeterminate amount of time, Tommy rounded a corner and came across the slender black girl pulling open a door set into the right hand wall and moving through it; he frowned at the sight of the small trail of blood that dripped from a wound in Tanya’s upper arm.

Tommy reached the door just as it swung shut. He laid a palm on the polished wood surface and took a moment to wonder what the kid Tanya was following was expecting to find in here. The only place this could possibly be was the kitchen where Ernie prepared his burgers and fries, and it wasn’t like any of that equipment would do much good as shelter. But Tommy knew better than anyone how irrationally people could act when thrown into situations as intense as this one. He shook his head a little to try and clear it and pushed through the door after Tanya.

He found her standing next to a stainless steel counter, the small boy’s arms wrapped tightly around her neck. Beside Tanya stood another familiar figure.

“Ernie?” Tommy blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision. He thought he recognized the stocky Youth Center owner’s heavy build and trademark Hawaiian shirt, but considering the way his head felt, Tommy didn’t place much trust in his own eyes right now.

“Tommy?” Yep, that was Ernie’s voice all right – he would know it anywhere. The guy sounded incredulous, as though he never expected to see Tommy alive again. “What are – holy hell, Tommy, are you OK?”

“What? Yeah, I…” As he spoke, Tommy suddenly realized how warm and sticky the hand gripping his head felt. He pulled it away and held it in front of his face to find it drenched in thick blood that had begun to seep through his fingers. “Aw shit.”

Tanya set the kid down and glanced at Ernie. “Will you watch him for a second?” He nodded and took the kid’s hand, and Tanya turned back to Tommy. “Hold on.” She carefully tore another strip of cloth off her already ruined shirt, revealing more of her midriff, and wound it around Tommy’s head, tying it off as tightly as she could. After a moment, Tanya stepped back and admired her handiwork with a sly grin.

Tommy sighed. “I look like an extra from _Saving Private Ryan_ , don’t I?”

Tanya shrugged. “Unless anyone in that movie wrapped a head injury in sparkly silver fabric, I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

“Are you sure you’re OK, Tommy?” Ernie asked again, rubbing the little boy’s shoulder as he leaned into the portly restaurateur’s side. Tommy nodded and rose to his feet.

“I’m fine, Ernie, just a little dizzy, nothing earth-shattering.”

As if triggered by Tommy’s words, at that very moment there was another deep rumble, the very ground beneath them vibrating as something began to grow closer. Tommy and Tanya exchanged concerned glances just as the giant red fireball came careening through the ceiling of the room they were standing in, carving a trench through the Youth Center’s roof as it hurtled past them. Jagged chunks of debris rained down into the room; Tommy grabbed Tanya and wrenched both of them to the floor, shielding her body with his own. Ernie herded the little boy underneath a particularly sturdy piece of machinery before realizing he couldn’t fit under it himself. He turned back into the room and looked Tommy directly in the eye just as a piece of broken concrete the size of a basketball came flying straight toward him.

Tommy was still looking right into Ernie’s eyes when the hunk of rock struck him full-on in the face. Huge pieces of skin were grated off of Ernie’s cheeks and forehead; his nose was crushed, leaving behind little more than a mangled, bloody mass of flesh. The stocky bartender’s head jerked back, a guttural cry of pain escaping his throat as he staggered backward and toppled over. Tommy had to force himself not to gag at the sound Ernie’s head made when it bounced against the hard floor, the hollow _thock_ of bone on tile. He moved to climb off of Tanya and run to help, but just as he pushed himself up, a stray piece of rebar dislodged from part of the ceiling and shot through the air toward him. Tommy grabbed Tanya by both shoulders and yanked both of them out of the way, rolling her over him to carry them both across the floor. The piece of rusted steel drove itself into the ground less than six inches from Tommy’s head, piercing the tile floor by almost a foot.

Tanya stared down at Tommy, her eyes wide with shock, flinching out of his grip on her injured arm. Tommy offered her a small nod of reassurance before suddenly shifting his gaze over her shoulder, where the newly installed makeshift skylight revealed the shape of another incoming projectile against the clear California sky. “Go check on Ernie,” he said softly in her ear. “Right now.”

“What?” Tanya whipped her head around the room as though searching for Ernie. “Why? What happened?”

“You’ll, uh…find out when you get there,” Tommy replied. “Just go. I’ll get the kid. We have to get out of here.” He gave Tanya a gentle shove and pulled himself out from under her, crawling frantically across a floor pockmarked and rutted by falling debris and approaching the spot where the kid lay huddled beneath a stainless steel counter.

“Hey,” he said softly, not wanting to risk taking the harsh approach. “Come on. We’re gonna get you out of here.” He reached a hand out to the kid, trying to look as comforting as he could without glancing over his shoulder every three seconds to check on the incoming fireball. The kid looked from Tommy’s outstretched hand to his face and back as though unable to connect the two as belonging to the same person.

“Tommy,” Tanya croaked, interrupting his negotiation. He leaned in further and patted the kid gently on the knee.

“I’ll be right back,” he whispered before unfolding himself and trotting over to Tanya. “How is he?”

“Not good,” Tanya said weakly, stroking Ernie’s lacerated cheek. “He’s lost a lot of blood and he can’t breathe through his nose, and I’m no doctor but for all I know he has brain trauma from a blow with that kind of force. Improvised first aid with pieces of dirty shirts isn’t gonna do shit for him, we have to get him to the Command Center with us right now.”

Tommy nodded grimly. “All right, take him and go, I’ll get the kid.” Tanya looped her arm around Ernie’s and pressed a button on her communicator.

Nothing.

“It isn’t working,” she said, stunned. Tommy frowned and tried his own. When he got the same result – or lack thereof – he sighed and ran a hand through his hair.

“Well then,” he started, quickly realizing he had no idea what to do for Ernie right now. There was obviously no way to call an ambulance, and even he and Tanya put together couldn’t carry Ernie’s sizeable bulk as far as would be required to reach safety. There was only one option available. “I guess we should go back and find Billy. Maybe he knows something about why the communicators aren’t working.”

Tanya frowned and rose slowly to her feet. She opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, the two Rangers had a powerful sense of something very dangerous approaching. The two of them shared a glance.

“You feel that?”

“That distinct sensation of being hopelessly screwed? Oh yeah.”

There was a deafening boom from above them, so loud that it sent yet another tremor through the ground they stood on. Tommy spun on his heel and saw what looked like an enormous silver firework that had just bloomed in the sky overhead. As he watched, the thing appeared to blur slightly, like drops of water sliding down the outside of a car window. Then it hit him.

Water.

_Oh my god._

He lunged toward Tanya, tackling her to the ground and rolling them under a nearby table. She squirmed in protest, his rough movements driving daggers of pain into her injured arm. Tommy took his weight off of her and slid carefully to his right, keeping as much of his body under the table as possible. He was just about to poke his head out for another look up when the silver liquid began to fall, splashing to the ground around them in huge, thick drops that reminded him of liquid mercury. They pooled all around them, not flowing like water would have but instead appearing to stick in place on the tiles, where they began to emanate a dull silvery glow. Tommy looked up and realized that the kid had crawled out from where he’d been hidden under the counter and stared up at the falling liquid. Tommy opened his mouth to call out a warning, but before he had a chance to make a sound, the kid was hit by several drops of the stuff; as Tommy watched, the boy went rigid, freezing in place and giving off a faint silver glow of his own.

“Ernie?” Tanya’s voice carried such a tone of anxiety that Tommy was able to tear his gaze away and turn to follow his friend’s eyes. The owner of the Youth Center still lay prone on his back, but it appeared he had lifted his arms to try and leverage himself to a sitting position when the strange liquid had landed on him. He, too, now lay frozen, rooted to the ground, glowing that dull silvery color. Tanya reached out to crawl in Ernie’s direction, but some part of Tommy he had no control over shot his hand out to grab her wrist and yank her back. She turned and glared at him. He dropped her hand immediately and held up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

“Tan, wait. Don’t touch that silvery stuff. Whatever it is, look what it did to Ernie; if we touch it, it might do the same thing to us.”

Tanya scanned the room apprehensively, observing the puddles of thick liquid that coated much of the floor space or dripped down the sides of counters and tables. At one spot at the edge of their table, a thin stream began to trickle over the side, pouring onto the floor. Tanya curled her legs up to her chest and turned to face Tommy. “So what do we do? We’re completely surrounded,” she said, gesturing at the moat of silver fluid that engulfed the outside of the table. “We have to find some way to get across this stuff without touching it.”

The two Rangers made eye contact as the idea dawned on them simultaneously.

“The table!” Moving to opposite ends of their covered space, Tommy and Tanya pressed their palms against the bottom of the table and slowly stood up, taking care not to step in any of the liquid or get any drips on them. Then they found a spot on the floor where the table would fit between them and Ernie and readied themselves.

“Ready?” Tanya breathed, licking her lips nervously. Tommy nodded. “OK, on three. One…two… _three!_ ” The two of them moved as one, flipping the table over and dropping it upside down onto the floor beside them, creating a bridge of safety across the dangerous fluid. Tommy had barely lowered his arms before Tanya was halfway across the table. She knelt carefully in a bare spot at Ernie’s side and hesitated, unsure of whether she could touch him.

_Christ that girl can move,_ Tommy thought, following Tanya across the upturned table. Her hand still hovered over Ernie’s neck, where she clearly intended to check for a pulse. He watched as she slowly moved her hand closer and closer, until it was almost touching Ernie’s skin, before jerking it back and shaking it as though a match had just burned down between her fingers.

“Mother _fucker_ ,” Tanya hissed, flexing and straightening her fingers and shaking her hand a little more. Tommy raised an eyebrow at her. She gripped her fingers in her other hand and said, “I don’t know what this silvery shit is but it shocked me or bit me or…something when I tried to touch it. Note to self: refrain from touching silvery alien space rain in the future.”

Tommy chuckled softly and held a hand as close to Ernie’s mouth as he dared. Fortunately, the only thing he felt was a steady, almost rhythmic flow of air from the portly man’s throat. Tommy sighed and let his hand fall back down to rest on his knee. “Well, he’s breathing. If we can get the communicators working we can try to figure out a way to teleport him out, see if Zordon and Alpha know anything we can try.”

“How are we gonna do that if we can’t even fucking touch him?” Tanya retorted. Tommy recoiled a little in surprise at the force of her outburst; she gasped and laid a hand on his arm. “Sorry. This whole thing’s getting really intense. I guess I’m wound a bit tight right now.”

Tommy wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry about it,” he whispered. She smiled and the two of them stood up and looked around them. “We still have to find Billy,” Tommy said louder, turning toward the door. “We’re not doing anybody any good here.”

Tanya seemed reluctant – as they moved across the room, her gaze fell on the boy she’d followed in here, lying stiff and still on the floor – and Tommy had to nudge her several times before she finally tore her eyes away and followed him out the door, neither one of them making any move to stop it as it swung shut behind them.

* * *

“Much as I hate to admit it, I’m actually jealous of Adam,” Kat remarked as she and Rocky half-carried Billy out the front door of the Youth Center. “At least he had the good sense to get hurt _before_ our communicators crapped out on us.”

Rocky snorted and wiped his forehead on his sleeve. “That’s Adam for you, always with the good sense.” The three of them picked their way delicately across the street in front of the Youth Center, trying to ignore the scene of devastation that lay around them.

The place looked like a nuclear bomb had gone off. The street was riddled with craters and cracks, giant chunks of asphalt strewn randomly about the landscape. Every building in sight had massive pieces blown out of it, like they’d had bites taken out of them by a giant child. The sky had turned gray with the thick layer of dust and ash kicked up by the recent barrage; somewhere off in the distance, Kat could hear screams, and the air carried the scents of burning rubber and blood.

“Holy crap, this place looks like something out of Revelation,” Rocky muttered, stepping carefully over a piece of charred, twisted metal that could once have been a part of a car.

“Leave it to the lapsed Catholic to know an apocalypse when he sees one,” Billy retorted weakly, spitting out a mouthful of blood as he did so.

“Don’t let my mother hear you say that,” Rocky replied, throwing Kat a concerned glance. She nodded and tightened her grip on Billy’s arm a little. Kat had grown more and more worried about her friend from the moment the three of them had been about to go after Tanya and Tommy; Billy had barely even been able to stand, let alone walk, and now he was coughing up blood. Kat was no doctor, but she’d been a Ranger long enough to know when someone was more gravely injured than was obvious upon first glance. If he’d been morphed, that would be one thing – he’d have healed completely by now. But Kat knew it was far too late for that – just to activate a morph required a certain amount of strength in order to withstand the rush of power. If any of the three of them morphed now, the sheer volume of energy from the morphing grid would be enough to wound them even more severely – or in Billy’s case, kill them. Their only option at this point was to get back to the Command Center, get themselves fixed up (which they could do in hours at most as long as nobody was hurt even worse than she feared) and regroup.

Kat just hoped they could survive that long.

“OK, Billy,” Kat said, stopping about three hundred yards from the Youth Center entrance. “Do you think this is far enough?”

Billy was breathing heavily now, even with Kat and Rocky both holding him up. Between gasps for air, he managed to say, “Only…one way…to…find out.” Rocky nodded and pressed a button on his communicator. Still nothing.

“Shit,” Kat muttered. Then she noticed something up ahead. One of the taller buildings nearby appeared to still be structurally intact, its rectangular form towering over the destruction. “Wait a minute. Billy – what if we can get to higher ground? Would that make any difference?”

Billy took a long moment to think; so long in fact that at one point Kat was afraid he’d passed out. Finally, he answered her. “I can honestly say I have no idea,” he said. “I suppose since most of the explosions are happening at ground level that the concentration of radiation or whatever it is causing the interference should lessen the higher off the ground we get, but…” he trailed off and took a moment to catch his breath. He was wheezing now, every breath taken with obvious effort. Kat fought down the rising panic that threatened to break through her calm and forced herself to keep her balance and keep Billy upright. “That’s just a theory. I have no way of knowing one way or another whether height will make any difference.”

“Frankly, Kat, I don’t know if getting any higher off the ground is a very good idea,” Rocky grunted from Billy’s other side. Kat leaned forward and frowned at him. Her Hispanic friend smiled grimly and pointed to the sky. “Especially not if it means getting any closer to _that_ thing.”

Kat followed Rocky’s finger and gasped at what she saw. Hovering in the air above them, perhaps four or five thousand feet off the ground, was an enormous object that Kat could only imagine to be some form of spaceship. It was massive; even from this distance Kat was awestruck by just how large the thing was. It appeared to have been constructed entirely at random, pieces of varying shapes and sizes simply thrown together in no discernible order, lending the vessel an air of chaos almost as imposing as its size.

“What the bloody hell is that?” Kat’s Australian lilt broke through the stunned silence that had engulfed them, the three tired youths standing dumbfounded on a ruined street in the midst of a destroyed city. Before any of them could answer, they saw the glassy black surface of the floating object begin to light up, a spectacular array of colors flashing across it faster and faster until the whole thing seemed to shine. Suddenly, the light vanished as quickly as it had appeared and the monolith released a cloud of multicolored fireballs; Kat was vaguely reminded of blowing on a dandelion and watching the buds float away.

“Uh, guys?” Billy’s voice was barely audible at this point. Kat and Rocky immediately gave him their full attention, each of them worried Billy had somehow gotten worse. Instead, though, their friend kept his gaze locked on the display above them. “Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but one of those things is headed right for us.”

It didn’t take Kat and Rocky long to realize he was right. A flaming piece of rock that glowed a brilliant shade of turquoise was falling straight at them, arcing through the sky on a beeline for their position.

“ _Move!_ ” Kat screamed, shoving her friends to one side. The threesome took a hard right and charged forward along the street, searching desperately for a place to take cover. Just as they reached a relatively undamaged portion of road, the fireball impacted less than fifty yards behind them and detonated in a shockwave even more powerful than any of the others. It flung all three of them several yards forward, sending them sprawling painfully onto the concrete. A nearby car that had survived the other attacks relatively undamaged was sent flipping through the air, riding the shockwave on a collision course with their location. The already injured Rangers struggled slowly to their feet and dragged themselves down the middle of the ruined street as the dome of blue green energy charged toward them, showing no sign of slowing down. 

* * *

Tommy and Tanya came barreling through a side door of the destroyed Youth Center just in time to see the distant figures of their friends dash to one side in the wake of a giant ball of turquoise fire that crashed into the ground about six football fields away from the Youth Center. Tanya vaguely heard Tommy say something, but before he’d verbalized an entire thought, she was gone, charging across the ruined grass and pavement to intercept the others. As her legs pounded against the crumbling surfaces of her beloved city, Tanya realized that two of her friends were carrying the other between them; they were in no condition to outrun the wave of green energy that spread across the ground – or the car that flew toward them in the wake of the tremor. Then Tanya realized something that sent a chill down her spine.

They didn’t know what they were running from.

“Guys!” Tanya’s voice disappeared almost as soon as it left her mouth, carried away by the harsh wind kicked up by the impact. She took a few more bounding steps forward and skidded to a stop, raising her arms to cup her hands around her mouth. “Hey guys! Get down! You’ve got to take cover!”

Lowering her arms, Tanya quickly realized that this was not going to work. She clenched and released her right fist a few times to keep the feeling in her arm, which had gone frighteningly numb. Then she raced forward again, aiming for where she thought the others would be when she reached them. Some distant Ranger instinct told her of Tommy’s presence, just behind her and to the left, but she made no move to acknowledge him; instead she drove herself faster toward her friends, desperately trying to reach them before whatever it was that was closing in on them caught up.

She and Tommy reached Kat and Rocky – whom she now realized carried an exhausted-looking Billy between them – at just about the same time. Kat was the closest to them, and Tanya dove at her, throwing both herself and her best friend to the hard pavement just as Tommy tackled Billy and Rocky out of the way. It was in that moment, as she watched the three guys roll out of the street and over the curb, that Tanya realized a fatal flaw in her actions. She and Kat now lay in the center of the road, helpless in the path of the oncoming car that hurtled toward them like a bullet from a gun. Tanya looked up just in time to catch the glint of sunlight off the car’s front grille as the vehicle closed to within feet of her and Kat.

Time seemed to screech to a halt; the entire world froze in place like a special effects shot in one of Rocky’s shitty action movies as the front end of the car plowed into the ground less than a foot in front of Tanya’s face. She saw every detail as the front end of the car crumpled like an accordion, the impact sending a ripple through the hood as though it was water. As the car’s forward momentum brought it flipping over her, Tanya flattened herself to the ground and flung out an arm to hold Kat prone beside her. Through the car’s windshield she could see the small, heart-shaped pendant that hung from the rearview mirror, the leopard-print cover that clung to the steering wheel; the car continued forward, catapulting itself over the two female Rangers and smashing onto the pavement a few feet beyond Kat.

As time finally sped back up to full speed again, Tanya let out the breath she suddenly realized she’d been holding and rolled to her right to get the weight off of her wounded arm. That was when she saw the green wave of energy closing in on her. Unable to make herself move, Tanya clenched her hands into fists and braced herself.

The wave dissipated less than an inch from the tip of her nose.

Tanya blinked a few times in disbelief before rising to her feet and pulling Kat up behind her. Her gold-clad friend dusted herself off and offered Tanya a small smile.

“I would say thank you if you hadn’t scraped most of the skin off my knees,” Kat said, holding Tanya’s hand as the pair walked back toward the others.

“Well if not for me they would be scraping _you_ off the street with a spatula,” Tanya countered, shaking a finger in Kat’s face. Her friend rolled her eyes.

“Bullshit. I had the situation totally under control.”

“Oh, really? Tell that to the aneurysm you almost gave me.”

“O ye of little faith.”

“O ye of little _brains_.”

Kat paused for a moment. “Idiot.”

“Bitch.”

“Skank.”

“Kiwi.”

Kat whirled on Tanya, who just smiled at her innocently and winked. “What?”

“Don’t even joke like that,” Kat said solemnly, jabbing a finger into Tanya’s face. Tanya’s eyes crossed for a moment as she stared at Kat’s fingertip; she flicked her eyes up into Kat’s baby blue ones and held a straight face for as long as she could. She and Kat cracked at about the same time, and dissolved into laughter together. Tanya didn’t fail to notice, however, that as Kat’s laughter faded, her friend turned and gazed wistfully at the ruined Youth Center.

“Kat, honey?” Tanya said, putting a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “You OK?”

“Huh? Oh, uh, yeah,” Kat replied, waving her off. “Just a few things happened back there I’d like to do over.”

Tanya nodded. “Believe me, I know the feeling. Want to talk about it?”

Kat glanced off to one side. “Later, I promise. Right now, we’d better get going before the guys leave us behind.”

Tanya turned to see Tommy and Rocky already carrying Billy to the nearest structurally intact building to test their higher ground theory. She sighed a little and took Kat’s hand. “I’ll hold you to that.”

With that, the two hurried to catch up with the others, eager to leave this scene of devastation behind as quickly as possible.


	4. Bruised and Scarred

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check those warnings, people. Seriously.

**“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”  
** **-Friedrich Nietzsche**

**Command Center Main Chamber  
** **Somewhere Outside Angel Grove, CA  
** **August 28, 2012  
** **11:15 AM PDT**

Adam poked his head through the doorway into the Main Chamber. He’d teleported himself straight to the Medical Bay, and utilized one of the incredibly advanced pieces of medical equipment the Command Center had on hand to gently extract the shard of glass from his lower back. After taking a moment to ensure that he hadn’t sustained any nerve damage and administering some antibiotics, he’d had the wound closed using a precision laser that cauterized the flesh together, popped a dose of painkillers and slapped a patch of gauze onto his back. Once that was done, all he had to do was grab a quick change of clothes from his private quarters and head back to the Main Chamber to see what the hell was going on.

Still slightly favoring his left leg and scratching absentmindedly at his bandage, Adam slowly swung the door to the Main Chamber open and moved quietly inside, hoping not to disturb whatever Zordon and Alpha may have been doing.

That was quickly rendered unnecessary.

“Adam.” Zordon’s voice boomed from his time-warp tube and echoed through the Chamber; as usual, Adam even felt the ground under his feet vibrate softly. The giant, shimmering head turned in his direction and appeared to examine him before continuing. “Are you all right?”

Emboldened, Adam strode into the Chamber with a bit more purpose. “I’m fine, Zordon,” he replied, gesturing to himself. “It’s the others back at the Youth Center I’m worried about. I should get back there and help them.”

“Ay-yi-yi-yi-yi! I’m afraid that’s impossible!” Alpha 5 lamented, glancing up momentarily from where he labored frantically at a console near the Viewing Globe. Adam frowned at the little robot inquisitively. “There’s some kind of interstellar radiation coating the area, making teleportation in or out nearly impossible.”

One particular word in that sentence caught Adam’s ears. “ _Nearly_ impossible? So there is a way back there.”

Alpha paused what he was working on and turned to face the green-clad young man. “In order to teleport into the contaminated area, we would need to put you down somewhere more than thirty feet off the ground, like the roof of a building. Not only would that take incredibly precise aiming, timing and power usage, but we would have no way of knowing if the surface you were landing on was at any reliable level of structural integrity. You could end up on a roof only for it to collapse beneath you.”

“Shit,” Adam hissed, running a hand through his hair. He turned back into the center of the Chamber. “What about communications? If we can get through to the others we can tell them that they need to get thirty feet off the ground to teleport.”

“Unfortunately, Adam, this strange radiation has affected communications as well,” Zordon said gravely. “We have had no luck contacting any of the other Rangers.”

Adam exhaled slowly through his nose. “OK…” he thought carefully for a moment, forcing himself not to panic. He had to figure out where he could do the most good. He couldn’t do anything for his five friends at the Youth Center right now – he’d just have to hope they found high ground to teleport from. What he _could_ do was figure out what the hell had just happened out there so when they did show up he’d be able to supply them with some pertinent information. “So what the hell is happening out there, Zordon? One minute everything’s fine and the next the whole Youth Center’s being blown to hell. Have Rita and Zedd finally grown a pair?”

Something happened as that question left Adam’s mouth that he’d never expected to see in his entire life, something that frightened him more than he was willing to admit. The mention of Rita and Zedd caused Zordon to _visibly flinch_ – and even after Adam finished asking his question, the Eltarian sage actually hesitated. As Adam looked on, the color quickly draining out of his face, the being he’d come to think of almost as a father, who he’d learned to trust as one of the wisest beings in the universe, actually looked as though he were at a complete loss for words. It was at that moment that the truth finally struck home.

They were all in some deep shit.

“Zordon?” Adam’s entreaty was softer, almost meek; he hated how childish his voice sounded, like a toddler begging a parent for safety during a thunderstorm. Zordon seemed to understand.

“The situation is quite grave, Adam,” the Eltarian said. “Angel Grove is not the only city under attack. Alpha, show Adam the printouts.”

Without even turning his head from what he was doing, Alpha extended his hand toward Adam, a small stack of papers clenched in it. Adam took it and began leafing through, his eyes slowly widening as the events of the morning played out on the pages before him. After a moment, he froze halfway down one page and looked up to demand an explanation from Zordon for what he was seeing.

That was when the others teleported in. None of them looked any better off than Adam had been; in fact, most of them looked worse. Billy was practically dead on his feet, leaning on both Tommy and Rocky for support; those two looked pretty bad themselves, Tommy bleeding profusely through the makeshift bandage tied around his forehead and Rocky gripping his left side with his free hand, barely able to put any weight on his left foot. As the three turned away from him, Adam gasped at the vicious burns that had savaged the back of Rocky’s neck, his flesh blackened and blistered like a charred hamburger. Tanya and Kat had landed nearby; Kat’s legs had been badly lacerated, a cluster of angry bruises colored any exposed skin above her waist, and as Adam looked on, she did something incredibly un-Kat-like, hocking a large mouthful of bloody mucus onto the Command Center floor. Out of all of them, Tanya appeared to be the least injured, her only visible wound being the trickle of blood from her upper left arm. Adam lurched toward them and gently took half of Billy’s weight off of Rocky’s shoulders before his friend passed out on the spot.

“Tommy,” Adam said gently but firmly, pulling his leader out of a sort of daze. “Do you think you can walk as far as the Med Bay?”

Tommy didn’t answer, just nodded a little, and he and Adam moved Billy haltingly forward toward the main corridor. As they moved past the girls, Adam caught Tanya’s eye. “Can you two help get Rocky to the Med Bay? He looks pretty bad.”

“I got it,” Rocky retorted brusquely, pushing past Adam and leading them out of the Main Chamber. The other three male rangers filed through the doorway one at a time; Billy let out a small groan of pain as Tommy bumped him into the doorframe. Adam watched Rocky storm down the hallway and shove the door to Med Bay open with a frustrated grunt.

“Fucking Reds,” Adam muttered, adjusting Billy’s weight. He heard what he hoped was an amused chuckle and not another moan of pain from Billy as he and Tommy helped him down the hall. By the time they reached the Med Bay, the two of them were dragging Billy along, his toes scraping on the floor. Adam and Tommy lay Billy down on one of the five available medical beds and let the machines go to work. Rocky had already made it to another, and Adam went to lead Tommy to the third, only to see him already heading back toward the exit. Without hesitation, Adam stepped in front of Tommy and put a hand on his chest.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

Tommy glared at him. “I have work to do.”

Adam nodded. “Yeah, it’s called _not dying_. Now go put your ass on the bed or I swear to god I’ll do it for you.”

Tommy smiled weakly and raised an eyebrow. “You really think you could?”

“Dude, it wouldn’t even be fair,” Adam scoffed, nudging Tommy gently back. “Now go lie down before I have to prove it to you.”

Tommy seemed to begrudgingly agree and finally took the bed at the end of the row. Adam glanced around the Medical Bay, still squinting a little in the harsh fluorescent lights. The room was meticulously clean, the five beds and their attached equipment gleaming in the lights. The bed Tommy chose was fitted, like the others, with an extensive array of sophisticated medical apparatuses from Aquitar, Triforia and Eltar that worked directly with the morphing grid, giving them the capacity to heal many injuries that would be crippling or even lethal to normal humans in a matter of only a few hours – as long as the patient was both linked to the grid themselves and not injured too severely. A sixth, enclosed berth sat in the far corner of the room, into which someone suffering from injuries that might be life-threatening even to a Ranger could be directly teleported if necessary. They’d never had to use that bed before, to Adam’s knowledge; he hoped it would stay that way. From Adam’s quick visual assessment, he guessed that Tommy and Rocky could at the very least be on their feet and alert – if still a little woozy – in only a few minutes. Billy, on the other hand, he feared may take quite a bit longer to heal.

As the machines whirred to life and got to work on Tommy’s injuries, Adam turned on his heel and trotted back through the main corridor and into the Main Chamber, where Kat and Tanya stood waiting for him, hovering near the console on which Alpha was working. Tanya glanced up at him when he entered.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” he answered with a small smile. “You two feeling all right?”

“I’m OK,” Tanya said. “I can wait until everyone else has had a turn in the chop shop before I need to use it.”

“Billy hates when we call it that, you know,” Kat interjected without looking up. “And I could probably use a turn myself, but I am not leaving this room until we find out what happened out there.”

The three of them looked up at Zordon. The old sage seemed reluctant to tell them anything, but after a moment he relented.

“We first heard about these attacks approximately two hours ago,” Zordon began. “Strangely, though, none of our alarms were ever set off, and none of our sensors picked up any sort of alien activity.”

“Wait,” Tanya put in, holding up a finger. “This is something Rita and Zedd cooked up, right? Has to be.”

“That was our assumption as well,” Alpha said. “But then we finally got a visual lock on the Moon Palace and found…this.”

The Viewing Globe suddenly lit up, and Adam, Kat and Tanya crowded around it. The image they beheld was jaw-dropping. Rita and Zedd’s Moon Palace lay in smoldering ruins, the once impressive tower toppled over onto the lunar surface. The smoking piles of debris were splashed with several different colors of blood, and here and there the Rangers could see the odd piece of Putty – an arm, a leg, a few heads.

“What the fuck…?” Adam couldn’t verbalize the shock he felt; he and the girls simply turned back to Zordon, bewildered looks on their faces.

“We can find no traces of Rita, Zedd, Goldar, Rito, Scorpina, Squatt, Baboo or Finster anywhere within the entire range of our sensors,” Zordon said somberly. “We can only assume they’ve been destroyed by whatever it is that’s attacking Earth.”

“You mean we still don’t know?” Kat asked incredulously, leaning against a console for balance. When Zordon didn’t answer, she added, “Is there anything we _do_ know?”

“I’m afraid our knowledge of this situation is very limited, Katherine,” Zordon replied. “And the information we do have is not reassuring.” The Viewing Globe lit up again, and the three Rangers present examined it as Zordon continued. “All we know at this point is that these unknown invaders don’t match any of our databases of evil races in the known universe, and that over the course of the last two hours, one of their ships has attacked nearly every major city, national capital, and major global political site on the entire planet.”

“What do you mean _every major city_?” Kat demanded. “How many of these bastards are there?”

“Almost every city in the world with a population greater than three million has been completely devastated,” Zordon said. “Along with the headquarters of every international political organization – the United Nations, NATO, the ICC, and others – and every national capital, meaning we must assume that every major world leader is either dead or incapacitated.”

“Holy shit,” Adam breathed, staring at the floor. “That’s over a hundred cities, probably more than a billion people. There’s gonna be anarchy all over the world.”

“Not to mention there must be thousands of these things up there,” Tanya added.

“I’m afraid there’s more, Rangers.” All three heads in the room jerked toward the sound of Zordon’s voice. “There were four sites hit which seemed anomalous to the original pattern. Angel Grove was one.”

Something seemed to dawn on Tanya. Her head began slowly shaking back and forth. “Oh my god.”

“The others are Miami, Florida…” Adam frowned a little. “Geneva, Switzerland…” His mouth went dry. “And a seemingly random location over Western Africa.”

“Wait a minute,” Kat said, sounding shell-shocked. “Miami, as in…”

“Kimberly.” They turned. Tommy stood in the doorway, still looking like hell but at least seeming stable on his feet. Suddenly Rocky came up behind him, not looking much better.

“And Africa, as in Aisha.”

Tanya turned back to Adam. “And Geneva, as in…”

Adam nodded grimly. “The Peace Conference.”

The five Rangers exchanged several shocked, tense glances before Kat looked up at Zordon and spoke softly, an unmistakable tremor in her voice. “They deliberately went after the only four places on the entire planet where Power Rangers lived. The only reason they would do that would be that they…” She trailed off, not wanting to voice the idea out loud.

Adam did it for her, closing his eyes somberly as he did.

“They know who we are.”

* * *

**Command Center Main Chamber  
** **Somewhere Outside Angel Grove, CA  
** **August 28, 2012  
** **Noon PDT**

Even before the pink sparks that surrounded her had entirely dissipated, the gathered Rangers in the Main Chamber could tell that Kimberly was reaching out for something when she teleported in. She landed on the right side of the room near Zordon’s tube, both arms extended before her, fingers grasping frantically for something that was no longer there. Kat, who had been staring blankly at the Viewing Globe for the last ten minutes, turned at the sound of her teleportation and frowned at Kim’s position, her face radiating obvious concern. Adam and Tanya froze in the doorway where they’d just returned from taking Rocky back to his quarters, their faces draining of color at the look of horror on Kim’s face, her mouth open slightly as though about to call out to someone. Tanya dug her fingers into Adam’s arm without even thinking about it; he spared a glance down at her hand, then another at her profile, before turning back to Kim.

For his part, Tommy’s face lit up like a kid on Christmas. He seemed to completely disregard Kim’s expression or her outstretched arms; grinning from ear to ear, he charged across the Chamber and threw himself at her, squeezing her against his body even as she refused to acknowledge his presence. They stood there awkwardly for a moment, Kim still locked into her original posture, staring through the Command Center floor into whatever scene she’d left behind as Tommy tried to embrace her, before Kim blinked a few times and came violently back to herself, batting Tommy’s arms away and staggering back. She looked wildly about the Command Center as though unable to comprehend that she was there before fixing Tommy in a deadly glare.

“The hell is wrong with you?” Kim jabbed an accusatory finger in Tommy’s face, stepping aggressively toward him even as he raised his hands in front of him. “There were two people, _right next to me_ , depending on me to get them out of there and you made me just leave them behind.”

“Come on, Kim,” Tommy countered calmly. “Think this through for five seconds, would you? You know damn well that we can only teleport somebody if they’re either wearing a communicator or they’re touching someone who is and we can pick up a life sign. If we overrode that we could risk teleporting Putties or even monsters in here.”

“Bullshit.” Kim made a sharp, sweeping gesture with her right arm. “We’ve been using that thing on inanimate objects since day one; we’ve teleported weapons, Zord parts, scanners, those portal generators Billy built…hell, I think we even teleported a car in here once. But when there are two _people_ , two living, breathing people who need our help, they get left behind because you’re too fucking incompetent at working the consoles to pick up on their vitals.”

The others gaped at Tommy and Kim in stunned silence, except for Alpha, who seemed far too involved in his attempts at locating Aisha to even acknowledge the Rangers’ presence. Zordon seemed to be elsewhere, his blurry image absent from the tube for a moment while he worked on retrieving their friends in Switzerland. Tommy blinked a few times, his mouth working soundlessly for a moment before he fixed his jaw and crossed his arms harshly across his chest.

“Look, I get that you disagree with my account of how things happened. Really, I do. It must’ve been terrifying being down there with no powers, no way out, no way of knowing what the hell was going on –“

“Not as terrifying as having to teleport away while two other people had to just stand there and watch me –“

“Will you let me fucking finish?” Kim snapped her mouth shut and scowled at him. Tommy stepped toward her and went on. “I get that things down there were hard, trust me – we all just watched the Youth Center get blown to shit. But that gives you no right to get in here and just start questioning anyone else’s abilities or intentions. You know damn well that we all want the same thing here.”

Kim laughed bitterly. “Right. Of course we do.” Kim glanced around the room, feeling the tense eyes of her three other friends still drilling into her. She made eye contact with each of them before turning back to Tommy. “Why don’t we just skip the part where you put on the whole unshakeable leader act and actually get to the real issue here?”

Tommy narrowed his eyes at her. “The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

Kim shook her head. “Unbelievable. You know, for someone who’s supposed to be responsible for coming up with battle plans and making strategic decisions, you do a _very_ good job of playing dumb.” She let her bag fall to the floor, the strap catching briefly on a shred of her ruined leotard. The slap of the fabric against the hard floor made Kat and Tanya jump; nobody noticed Tanya grip Adam’s arm again. As Kim moved toward Tommy to continue, Zordon’s face suddenly came into focus.

“Rangers,” he said, snapping five heads toward him. “Jason, Trini and Zachary have arrived in the Medical Bay. All three have sustained significant injuries.” He started to say more, but Tommy had already torn his eyes away and made a move for the door. Kim was on his heels immediately, and the two of them pushed roughly past Adam and Tanya and stormed into the corridor; their raised voices could be heard even through the heavy door that slid shut behind them. Adam, Tanya and Kat exchanged looks as another door opened and Rocky came back into the room, looking significantly less worked up than he’d been ten minutes ago. All three turned to face him, and Rocky froze in his tracks at their looks.

“Holy shit, what happened in here? Where’s Tommy?”

“Kim’s back.” Adam motioned at the door behind him with his head. “She and Tommy had a mutual bitch fit, Jason, Trini and Zack might be dying, Aisha’s still missing and Earth might be destroyed at any second.” He shrugged. “Also, I think I may have left my car unlocked.”

Tanya rolled her eyes. “Sounds like a Tuesday.”

Rocky moved further into the room and stood next to Kat, leaning against a console and running a hand over his face.

“Have I mentioned fuck our lives?” He let out a frustrated sigh and glanced up at the floor in front of him just as Aisha appeared on it. There was a collective gasp as the four other Rangers in the room converged on her, pulling her quickly to her feet.

“You know,” she said, her voice sounding strangely raw. “You guys’ timing really sucks.”

* * *

**Command Center Medical Bay  
** **Somewhere Outside Angel Grove, CA  
** **August 28, 2012  
** **12:30 PM PDT**

At the sound of the Med Bay doors sliding open, Tommy and Kim had turned to see what awaited them inside. Everything had just stopped. Scathing comebacks and biting sarcasm had withered and died on their tongues in seconds, their argument completely forgotten in the wake of the terrible sight that lay before them, the harsh, clinical lights not leaving anything to the imagination.

Jason lay on the bed closest to them, eyes closed, chest rising and falling erratically as the machinery surrounding him worked furiously on his numerous injuries. From their position, frozen in the doorway, Tommy and Kim could see the gruesome state of the soles of Jason’s feet, skin literally dangling from them in ragged, bloody flaps; his entire body was covered in lacerations and bruises, his right shoulder had swollen to a hideous size, and a steady trickle of blood ran down the leg of the table from a wound to the back of his head. Billy and Trini lay beside him, not looking much better. Tommy knew about Billy’s condition, so that wasn’t as much of a shock, and at least he was conscious.

Trini was a different story. The Yellow Ranger lay in the bed against the far wall, her entire body covered in cuts and bruises, her clothes darkened and stiff with dried blood. Several of her fingers were twisted at impossible angles and a small piece of jagged bone – Tommy hoped it was only a rib – protruded through the skin of her chest. A lump had begun to form in his throat at the sight: the two people before him were two of the strongest people he knew, in every sense of the word, and right now…they looked so damn _fragile_.

Kim staggered toward Jason as if in a daze, one hand clamped over her mouth, her face draining quickly of blood. Tommy could only watch as she slowly approached his bedside and gently curled her fingers around his hand. Kim was visibly struggling to hold back tears, the shock at seeing her big brother like this made even more intense by the fact that her best friend lay two beds away in just as severe condition. Her free hand gripped the edge of the bed, knuckles turning a frightening shade of white as she fought to keep her knees from buckling beneath her.

Just as Tommy finally overcame his shock and took his first tentative step into the Med Bay, Jason groaned softly and stirred a little. Tommy’s legs seemed to work by themselves, propelling him across the room and practically throwing himself against the bed on which his best friend lay. Kim cradled Jason’s hand in both of hers and held it up to her cheek, where she nuzzled against it like a kitten.

“Jason?” Kim’s voice was barely audible; a quavering, mewling noise that sounded to Tommy like it could just as easily have come from a kicked puppy. Tommy edged carefully toward her, as if she was a deer he’d found in the woods at sunrise. He gently draped one arm around Kim’s shoulders; thankfully, this time, instead of shoving him off, she leaned into him and clenched Jason’s hand tighter. Tommy squeezed Kim’s shoulder and laid his free hand on Jason’s stomach, as if to reassure himself that Jason was still there. He was just about to whisper a few comforting clichés in Kim’s ear when Jason spoke.

“Could I have my hand back, please?”

Kim’s jaw dropped open. She stuttered for a moment before she managed to get her breathing under control. “Hey Mongo,” she said softly, her face splitting into an ecstatic smile.

Jason smiled back. “Hey Squirt.” His words ran together a little, his voice made airy and a bit off-kilter by the massive influx of morphine. With obvious strain, he lifted his head slightly and looked down at himself before flopping back to the pillow with a grimace. “Fucked myself up pretty good, didn’t I?”

“Well it’s not like you could get any uglier,” Tommy chimed in. Jason let out a soft chuckle at that which quickly turned into a cough. Kim finally seemed to realize that Tommy had wrapped himself around her and stepped away from him to stand next to Jason’s head, still gripping his hand between both of hers.

Jason didn’t seem to notice. “If I wasn’t on all these glorious painkillers right now I would totally kick your ass.”

“Get in line,” Tommy replied. “Adam apparently has first dibs.”

“The First Jason Bank of Ass-Kicking does not recognize dibs as legal tender,” Jason slurred, holding up his other hand for a second before letting it fall back to the table. “Also ow.” He turned back to Kim. “Now can I have my hand back or are you going to keep molesting it? Because I will not hesitate to press charges.” As these words left his mouth the Red Ranger dissolved into a fit of delirious giggles that Kim and Tommy smiled at despite themselves.

Kim pressed Jason’s hand to her face again. “Sorry, Jase. The last person I held onto like this got left for dead because a certain someone couldn’t do his job.”

Jason’s brow furrowed slightly, his doped-up brain a little slow to comprehend what Kim had just said. Tommy, however, was at no such disadvantage. He scowled at Kim. “You’re not gonna let this go, are you?”

She whirled on him. “What? You leaving two incapacitated civilians in the middle of a goddamn war zone? No, something tells me that _might_ be a little important.”

Jason snorted. “Fan-fucking-tastic,” he muttered under his breath. “I’m gonna have to play marriage counselor for you two again, aren’t I?” They both turned and glared at him; he shrugged. “I’m just sayin’, we should warn the newbies. These things never turn out well for the kids.”

Kim leaned over and slapped Jason gently on the cheek. “Shut up, Mongo.”

* * *

**Command Center Main Chamber  
** **Somewhere Outside Angel Grove, CA  
** **August 28, 2012  
** **Noon PDT**

Aisha rose shakily to her feet, most of her weight still leaning on the hand Rocky had inserted under her arm. The Main Chamber had gone totally silent when she arrived; she looked up into four pairs of eyes that stared at her expectantly, searching her face for the story of where she’d just come from.

Rocky reached up and gently laid his free hand on the side of her neck. She flinched in surprise and gasped a little, grabbing his wrist and peering wide-eyed into his face.

“Sha?” He spoke so softly she could barely hear him, even from only a few inches away. She felt the slightest movement of air, his breath brushing across the flesh of her cheek, and suddenly everything came flying back and she was falling again, plummeting from thousands of feet above the Earth to save a man she’d just met, watching him slip through her fingers as she was whisked away to safety and he was left behind to die. Her eyes welled up, pools of hot tears threatening to leap free and tumble down cheeks made raw by the fierce winds.

Rocky had started to break into an exuberant smile at her presence; at the sound of the first breath catching quietly in her throat, it vanished so fast it may as well have been ripped off his face. He leaned forward until their foreheads touched and nuzzled tenderly against her.

“Jesus Christ, Aisha, what happened out there?”

She wanted to tell him. She wanted to tell all of them, let the story of how she’d failed at saving even one person come bursting out of her mouth, let the dams break and stop trying to hold the tears back any longer.

She couldn’t. Something inside her fought it back, killed the words as they crossed her tongue, pushed it all down inside as though hoping if she buried it deep enough it might all go away. Aisha squeezed her eyes shut, wrangled her breathing under control, and took a single, steady step backward, disentangling herself from Rocky.

“Not now,” she said calmly, her voice even to the point of monotony. She opened her eyes, ran a hand over her face, sighed, and turned on her heel. “I just have to lie down for a minute.”

As she started for the door to her private quarters, Rocky followed her, grabbing her shoulder and trying to pull her gently back. She fed into the momentum he gave her and whipped herself around, throwing his hand aside.

“Aisha…” he started. She quickly cut him off.

“God damn it, Rocky, I said _not now_!” She practically shouted before whipping back around and storming across the room. Rocky shot Adam a look that carried a distinct message of _What the hell was that?_ Adam could only shrug and pat Rocky reassuringly on the back as his friend jogged past him after Aisha, letting the door to the private quarters swing shut behind them.

Adam, Kat and Tanya once again found themselves alone in the Command Center, staring at each other in uncomfortable silence before Zordon finally spoke.

“Rangers,” he said softly. They glanced up at him. “You should go to the Medical Bay. Your friends there need you.”

“But Zordon, what about…” Adam jerked a thumb toward the door through which Rocky and Aisha had just gone.

“We must believe that together, Rocky and Aisha can get through this difficult situation. They will need each other, just as your friends need you.”

Adam nodded, took Tanya’s hand and led her through the doors into the main corridor; Kat hesitated, taking one last lingering look at the scene of devastation playing out on the Viewing Globe before following them out into the brightly lit hallway, wrapping her arms around herself as she went.

Rocky rounded a corner in the dimly lit hallway of bedrooms just in time to see Aisha disappearing into her room, slamming the heavy door closed behind her. He heard the resounding click of the latch sliding into place from the other side as he trotted up to the door and knocked on it softly.

“Sha, come on,” he pleaded, leaning his forehead against the cold steel of the door. “Please, talk to me. I just want to help.”

“What part of not now came out in fucking Swedish?” She shouted through the door. Rocky grunted in frustration and slammed his fist against the door one more time.

“God damn it –“ Rocky started to scream but cut himself off and slumped against the door. He let out a long sigh and ran a hand through his hair. “You know what? You’re right. I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “Take as long as you want, I was just… _fuck_.” He paused and shifted his weight uncomfortably, glancing back and forth down the hallway. Rocky cracked the knuckles of his right hand against his hip and started again. “Look, whenever you want to talk to someone, you know where to find me, OK? Anytime you want. I…” He stopped, thinking he heard something from behind the door. When the sound didn’t come again, he went on. “You know I’d do anything for you, right? I just need you to be OK.”

He patted the door gently with the palm of one hand and started to leave, but before he got far he turned and pressed his nose right up against the door, and spoke as though his lips were an inch from Aisha’s ear.

“I love you.”

No sound came from the door to indicate that she’d heard him. He patted the door one more time and started slowly back toward his room.

* * *

**Command Center Medical Bay  
** **Somewhere Outside Angel Grove, CA**  
**August 28, 2012  
** **12:45 PM PDT**

Adam, Kat and Tanya entered the Med Bay to find Tommy still standing next to Jason while Kim had taken up vigil beside Trini, both watching silently as the machines worked tirelessly on their various injuries. Tommy looked up at them as they entered and met them halfway into the room, resting his hands on his hips and eyeing the three of them anxiously.

“Where’s Rocky?”

“Aisha’s back,” Adam supplied. “They had issues.”

Tommy raised an eyebrow just as Jason spoke up from the bed, his words still slurring together slightly. “Hey guys! If Kim and Tommy get separated who would you rather live with?”

The three of them glanced from Jason to Tommy and back. Kat smiled. “Is he high on painkillers again?” Tommy bit back a laugh and nodded.

“You’re just jealous,” Jason called back, his words quickly fading into a bout of laughter.

“OK, I’ve had just about as much of that as I can take,” Billy groaned, rising to a seated position and gently pushing some machinery away. The Blue Ranger swung his feet out over the edge of the table and eased himself onto the floor. Tommy and Adam moved toward him just in case but Billy appeared to be stable. He waved them off impatiently and reached out to give Kim a hug. “Don’t worry, I’m fine. I just need to stay off my feet for a few more hours and at this point I’d rather just spend it in my own bed.”

“I’m glad you’re all right, Billy,” Kim whispered as she stepped back. Billy smiled at her and was about to respond when Jason yelled at them again.

“Billy! Dude, when I get out of here, remind me to ask you how to fix my computer, the Internet connection’s gone to shit.”

“I’ll do that, Jase,” Billy replied with a laugh.

“Uh, guys?” Everybody turned to see Tanya, who still stood in the doorway, arms wrapped around her shoulders. “Am I the only one wondering what the hell happened to Zack?”

The room instantly went silent. Kim, Tommy, Billy, Adam and Kat shared a very significant look. “I can’t really blame Jason since he’s high off his ass on morphine but the rest of you have no excuse. So where the hell is he?”

“Well the other two beds are empty,” Kim said with dawning realization, tracing her finger absently around the room. “So that means…”

The six Rangers’ eyes settled as one on the Intensive Care bed in the far corner. An immediate feeling of unease began to seep into the room; everyone present felt an unmistakable dread start to creep over them. Tommy felt his palms start to sweat; Adam swallowed hard, feeling a lump forming in his throat. Kim, Kat and Tanya felt their heartbeats start to quicken, hands rising subconsciously to their mouths. Billy blinked rapidly several times, his mouth working soundlessly as he stumbled toward the enclosed unit like a drunk.

“Oh shit,” he whispered. As he approached the bed, Billy felt his knees buckle. Tommy broke from his stupor in time to catch him and maneuver the two of them into position near the small window in one side of the enclosed bed.

When the two of them finally reached it, all the others saw was Tommy almost drop Billy, his face draining completely of color as he staggered back from the table. Billy slipped free from Tommy’s grip and crumpled to the floor on his hands and knees, dry heaving. The others rushed in to cluster around them, none of them noticing Tommy’s feeble attempt to wave them all back. When they all finally beheld what Tommy and Billy had just seen, Kat turned and bolted from the room, both hands clasped over her mouth. The others just stood frozen in horrified shock, bile rising in their stomachs as the hideous sight inside the enclosure became visible.

Zack was barely recognizable as human. He appeared to have taken a large, heavy piece of debris directly to the face; most of the skin was grated off, and even though his eyes were closed, the others could see a small piece of one eye through a jagged hole in the left eyelid. His shirt appeared to have been seared to his chest, his entire upper body consumed by blackened, blistering burns. Zack’s entire upper body looked like one massive chunk of burned and mangled flesh, most of the visible skin a disgusting red color instead of its usual deep brown.

But as bad as Zack’s upper body was, below the waist was worse. His lower legs were completely gone, terminating in a perfectly straight diagonal that stretched from just below his left knee to just above his right. What was left were merely bloody stumps, the dark red liquid pooling copiously beneath them; the stumps were nearly perfect cross-sections, the layers of skin, muscle and bone each clearly visible like rings in a tree stump. A closer look revealed that the same line that the stumps of Zack’s legs followed carried through his right hand as well – four of his fingers were gone, his hand nothing more than a shapeless lump of flesh with a thumb protruding from it. As the Rangers stood rooted to their spots, stunned at their friend’s terrible state, they could see Zack’s chest rise and fall erratically; after a moment a shudder went through him and a small trickle of blood appeared in the corner of his mouth. It was only then that they were able to tear their eyes away, each of them turning to face different parts of the room and speaking to the floor.

“Jesus Christ,” Tanya gasped, her voice breaking.

“W-what the hell happened t-to him?” Kim stammered, leaning forward to rest her hands on her knees.

Billy had recovered enough to grab the readout screen next to the bed and examine it closely, his hands still shaking as he scrolled through the data. He finally glanced up at his friends and said, “He’s suffered severe head trauma, brain damage, internal bleeding, widespread third degree burns, and it looks like his legs were severed but the cuts are almost surgical – this wasn’t just a freak accident.”

“It must’ve been one of those green energy field thingies I saw,” Kim responded, gripping a nearby desk for support.

“Guys?” Jason’s voice carried none of the deliriously upbeat quality it had only a few minutes before; now it was laced with worry, tinged with a hint of oncoming panic. Tommy and Adam looked at each other and made their way slowly toward the bed.

“Hey bro,” Jason said as Tommy came into view. “I must’ve dozed off or something, what the hell’s wrong with everybody?”

“Jase…” Tommy’s voice trailed off and he looked at Adam, who nodded, stepped forward and placed a hand on Jason’s chest. Jason’s eyes never left Tommy’s; the latter boy cleared his throat and continued. “It’s Zack, he…he, uh…”

“What?” Jason frantically glanced between Adam and Tommy, the painkillers lending intensity to his panic. “What happened? What’s everybody so freaked out about?”

“Jase.” Adam spoke so softly his voice was barely audible. Jason locked eyes with him and pleaded silently for the merciful lie.

Adam couldn’t bring himself to tell it. “It’s bad, Jason.” He looked up at Billy, who nodded and pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s really bad. He…” Adam’s voice broke, a sob threatening to break through; he drew in a hitched breath and let the word hang in the air.

“Let me up,” Jason growled, all signs of the drug high completely gone. Adam and Tommy looked at each other and back at the young man in red who lay before them. Both shook their heads. “Let. Me. The _fuck_. _UP_.” Jason demanded, trying to rise to a sitting position. Adam pushed down harder on his chest, keeping him down on the bed. Suddenly, Jason started thrashing wildly, his back arching, his arms tugging at the restricting machinery, fighting fiercely against Adam’s weight in a frenzied battle to get off of the bed.

“Jason, come on, you have to stay down,” Adam pleaded, pushing as hard as he could. Jason somehow managed to remove an IV from somewhere on his body and set off a piercing alarm from the surrounding equipment. “Tommy, god damn it, help me!”

“Tommy!” Tommy jerked his head around in time to catch the syringe Billy had tossed at him. Not even bothering to check the label on the hypodermic, Tommy yanked the cap off and pushed down on Jason’s right leg.

“Sorry bro,” he said gravely, and jabbed the needle into Jason’s thigh. The effect was almost immediate: the strength of Jason’s struggles quickly faded, and the Red Ranger collapsed back onto the bed, groaning softly, his head lolling to one side. Adam released the pressure on Jason’s chest and reinserted the IV needle, panting with exertion and residual shock.

Just as Jason’s eyes slid closed again, another alarm filled the Medical Bay, emanating directly from the Intensive Care bed. Kim took a staggering step backward toward the door, her face growing pale. Tanya shook her head desperately, tears already beginning to flow as her mouth began soundlessly forming the words, _no, no, no._ Adam ran a hand over his face, unable to move from his spot near Jason’s table. Tommy felt his heart start racing; his mouth went dry and his knees suddenly felt weak.

As they all gradually overcame their shocked paralysis, everyone in the room eventually zeroed in on Billy, who grabbed the data screen and read over it slowly. Nobody in the room had ever heard this alarm before, but somehow, every single one of them knew exactly what it meant.

Billy confirmed their fears a moment later when he shoved the screen away and wiped his eyes with one hand; he raised his head and looked at his friends through bloodshot eyes that were welling up with tears and spoke in a voice both clinically emotionless and brimming with barely restrained despair. “It was too much,” Billy said, his eyes looking everywhere but at the bed. “His brain was too badly damaged, his burns were infected, he lost way too much blood…” The Blue Ranger helplessly turned the screen toward his friends to show them what he’d just seen. “Zero brain activity. His heart’s stopped beating.” Billy shuddered and finally met his friends’ eyes as he delivered the most devastating news any of them had ever gotten.

“He’s gone.”


	5. I'm Not OK (I Promise)

**“Grief is not a disorder, a disease or a sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical and spiritual necessity, the price you pay for love. The only cure for grief is to grieve.”  
** **\- Earl Grollman**

 **“We can endure much more than we think we can; all human experience testifies to that. All we need to do is learn not to be afraid of pain. Grit your teeth and let it hurt. Don't deny it, don't be overwhelmed by it. It will not last forever. One day, the pain will be gone and you will still be there.”  
** **\- Harold Kushner**

 **Command Center Medical Bay  
** **Somewhere Outside Angel Grove, CA  
** **August 28, 2012  
** **3:30 PM PDT**

The Med Bay had fallen into grim silence after the Intensive Treatment Unit had shut down and gone dark. People had slowly filed out, fighting to keep their tear-streaked faces from turning back for one more look at the small enclosure where Zack’s body lay, until soon it was just Tommy who remained, sitting on the edge of the empty bed between Jason and Trini and swinging his legs despondently as he stared at the floor. Every so often he’d pick up the sound of a muffled sob or a hitched breath through the door; somehow he knew that was Kim, pacing the corridor outside the door, torn between not wanting to be near the body and not wanting to leave Jason and Trini alone.

He could relate. It was one thing when the others had been there to commiserate, to hug and cry and just wallow in the pain together, to share in that terrible, morbid rush that comes with giving oneself over to grief. There was relief in that, a sort of emotional analgesic that smoothed everything over, turned the pain into something blunt and slow and non-threatening. But once they’d gone, once he’d finally been left alone with his thoughts, everything had suddenly been thrust into sharp contrast; the pain and the stark reality of their situation had quickly distorted into a rough, jagged, white-hot cluster of spikes that embedded themselves in his chest and refused to let go. If Tommy concentrated, he thought he could feel them tearing a hole in him, opening a vacuum into which every positive thought or happy feeling would tumble and never escape. He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the hopeless tears starting to pool again. He felt like he was drowning in a flood, the overwhelming deluge of emotion pouring over him threatening to crush him under its weight. The grief was bad enough; the added side helping of guilt didn’t do anybody any favors.

For the last hour and a half Tommy had been trying to convince himself that the reason he stayed behind after all the others had left was to keep a vigil over Zack’s body and to be there to break the news as gently as possible when Jason and Trini woke up. But there was something in him, something deep down, that told him there was something else keeping him from leaving. Because of him, Jason hadn’t gotten the full story of what was happening; worse, he hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye. The last thing Jason had seen before he passed out was his best friend shooting him up with a sedative just to avoid telling him the truth. Tommy glanced up into his best friend’s sleeping face and sighed, his mind quickly filling with the idea that he owed Jason better than that.

_Although on second thought, would he really want to be where I am right now?_

Tommy chuckled bitterly. _Well that may have actually been the single dumbest question I’ve ever asked myself._

Of _course_ Jason would want to be where Tommy was – taking hits for other people was like crack to the guy. If there was potential for someone to be hurt, especially someone he cared about, Jason would’ve jumped at the chance to step in. By trying to spare his friend from this, Tommy had basically taken Jason’s propensity for protectiveness and bitch slapped him with it. The White Ranger blew a breath out of one corner of his mouth. _Awesome._

Tommy let his head droop forward, his chin resting against his chest as he closed his eyes and tried to imagine himself somewhere else, someplace where everything he cared about wasn’t being destroyed all around him, someplace where he hadn’t just lost one of the closest friends he’d ever had and utterly betrayed one of the noblest qualities of a man he thought of like a brother. Someplace where he didn’t have to sit there uselessly listening to Kimberly sobbing just outside the closed Med Bay door.

There was a resounding clatter in front of him, and Tommy jerked upright, snapping his eyes open and practically leaping off the table. Jason had sat straight up, arms stretched out behind him to support his weight, glancing around the Medical Bay as though still a bit disoriented. Tommy let out the breath he realized he’d been holding and smiled nervously.

“Christ, dude. Guess I should’ve remembered your little thing for waking up as hard as you can.”

Jason stared blankly at him and drew his legs in toward his body, bending his knees gingerly in order to ease his still-healing feet under him. Tommy watched as his best friend slowly maneuvered himself off the table and lowered his feet to the Med Bay floor. Almost immediately, Jason started to wobble slightly and Tommy darted around the table. He reached out to take hold of Jason’s shoulders to steady him but found himself halted by Jason thrusting a hand, fingers splayed, right into Tommy’s chest. Tommy looked down at the hand and back up into Jason’s eyes, furrowing his brow in confusion.

“I think you need to leave,” Jason said quietly, averting his gaze. Tommy felt a lump start to form in his throat. Jason spoke softly, but his voice was cold, emotionless - almost robotic. Tommy raised his hands in a gesture he hoped was placating and took a step back, letting his friend’s outstretched hand hang in midair. Jason brought it down slowly to his side and turned away from Tommy, leaning on the table and gazing across the room at Trini’s prone form on the opposite bed.

Tommy ran a hand over his face. “Jase, look, I’m –“

“Shut up.” Jason refused to turn and look Tommy in the face, his quiet, dead voice seeming to echo off the walls of the oppressively silent Medical Bay. Tommy’s mouth hung slightly open, working soundlessly around words that wouldn’t come. Finally, the hum of the lights and the buzzing of the machines became too much; Tommy pursed his lips, exhaled sharply through his nose and grabbed Jason’s shoulder before the other man could react, whipping him around to face him, and tried again.

“Jason –“

Jason cut him off again, throwing Tommy’s hand off his shoulder and finally lifting his eyes to stare the White Ranger in the face. Tommy had to stop himself from leaning away from Jason’s blazing glare, the intense resentment flaring up on the otherwise calm face. When he spoke again, Jason’s voice was still calm, still soft almost to the point of being gentle, but now the undercurrent of barely restrained fury was impossible to miss.

“How long?”

Tommy stared at him. “How long since what?”

Jason suddenly lunged forward, grabbed a handful of Tommy’s tattered white shirt and pulled their faces together. “Don’t give me that bullshit, you stupid fuck. How long have I been out since you jabbed that needle into my fucking leg?” Jason’s voice was almost a growl at this point, so low it was barely audible. Tommy could feel his hot breath on his face; Jason’s upper lip had begun to curl into a vicious scowl, baring his upper teeth like a pissed off gorilla.

Tommy swallowed nervously and lowered his eyes. “Almost two hours.”

Jason’s eyes widened. He searched Tommy’s face, almost begging him to be lying, but the other man reluctantly met his gaze and the ugly truth was impossible to deny. “You fucking asshole!” Jason glared even more intensely at Tommy and shoved him away, sending Tommy staggering several steps back. “Get the hell out of here, Tommy.” Jason turned on his heel and strode across the room to Trini’s bed, lovingly brushing a stray lock of hair off of her face.

Tommy tried desperately one more time. “Jason, please, I’m sorry –“

“You’re _sorry_?” Jason whirled to face him, his right hand holding the edge of Trini’s bed for support. He licked his lips and snorted derisively. “You’re fucking _sorry_? Let me tell you something, Tommy. You don’t _get_ to be sorry. You knew damn well that one of my best friends was _dying_ over there,” he waved a hand toward the darkened Intensive Treatment enclosure, making a conspicuous effort not to look at it. “And instead of just telling me, instead of letting me make a decision for myself about how to handle it, instead of – god forbid – actually letting me say goodbye, you suddenly decided you had the right to make that decision for me. What, did you think I couldn’t cope? Did you think I was gonna have some kind of breakdown and go all suicidal on you? For fuck’s sake, Tommy, I thought you knew me.”

Jason turned back to Trini. Tommy turned to leave and spoke over his shoulder as he headed for the door, trying to let off a bit of the steam this whole confrontation had built up. “I’m sorry, Jase. Really. I fucked up, I know. I’m sorry.”

Was what he intended to say. Call it anger, call it an emotional outburst, call it the pain talking; whatever it was, instead of the heartfelt apology he’d meant to offer, Tommy looked at Jason over his shoulder and blurted, “You know, I think I liked you better when you were high off your ass on morphine. At least then you were fun.”

Jason covered the length of the room faster than Tommy could comprehend and threw him up against the wall, pressing his uninjured left forearm into Tommy’s throat. Tommy struggled for air and grabbed at his friend’s arm but Jason would not be dissuaded.

“Listen to me you son of a bitch, I swear to god if you aren’t out of this room in the next ten seconds I’ll hit you so hard your fucking grandkids will feel it. Now _get out!_ ” Jason pulled his arm back and pushed Tommy toward the door. The two men turned their backs on each other, Jason returning to Trini’s side while Tommy stumbled through the door, massaging his throat as he went.

Kim glanced up from where she sat curled against the wall across from the Med Bay at the sound of the door sliding shut. She wiped her eyes and cocked her head at Tommy.

“That went well,” he muttered under his breath. His voice was a touch raspy; he cleared his throat a little and coughed once into his fist. Kim leaned her head back against the wall.

“Jason wake up again?”

“Yup. Ripped me a new one, too.”

“Nothing you didn’t deserve, from what I heard.” Her voice sounded almost cheerful.

Tommy glared at her. “Fuck you.”

“Not tonight you won’t,” Kim retorted, rising to her feet and moving past him to the door. Tommy stared after her for a long moment before rolling his eyes and storming down the hall toward his quarters.

“Son of a bitch.”

* * *

 **Medical Bay  
** **3:50 PM PDT**

Kim entered the Med Bay moving like she was walking on shards of broken glass. Her calves quickly began to ache at the effort of rolling her weight smoothly from heel to toe as she carefully approached Jason, who had pulled a stool up to the far table and sat hunched over Trini, his back to the door. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he lifted his head and spoke without turning around.

“Exactly what part of ‘get the fuck out’ did I not make clear enough – oh.” Jason turned his head slightly and saw Kim standing there, bloodshot eyes and trembling hands a testament to her emotional state. She sniffled a little and tried to smile.

“Probably the part where you didn’t say that to me,” she replied. Jason didn’t seem to react, just motioned subtly with his head and turned back to Trini. Kim grabbed another stool and slid it up next to him. It was only when she sat down and turned to him that she realized she had no idea what she had planned to say to him. Instead of talking, she reached up and laid a hand gently on his shoulder, her eyes traveling to his right hand, which he’d interlaced with Trini’s. After a long moment of silence, Kim opened her mouth again but once again found herself at a loss for words.

Jason helped with that. He turned his head slightly toward her and said, “You here to defend him?”

Kim slid her hand off of Jason’s shoulder and gripped her knees. “Who, that asshole?” She gestured with her head toward the door. “Hell no. Frankly I thought you could’ve gone a little harder on him.”

Jason’s lip curled ever so slightly upward and Kim leaned into him, wrapping an arm around his neck. “There’s the Jason I know,” she whispered, leaning her head into the crook of his neck.

“He’s gone, Kim.” Jason’s voice was choked and quavered slightly. His free hand rested on her thigh. He stared off into space over Trini’s bed and Kim felt the tears starting to return just looking at him. “Five hours ago I was making dirty jokes with him and now he’s…” Jason glanced over the top of Kim’s head at the bed where Zack’s body was held. She leaned back a little and peered into his face. His eyes were dry – Kim couldn’t remember the last time she’d actually seen Jason Scott cry – but the pain was evident on his face. “I did everything I possibly could to get them out of there – shit, I dislocated my fucking shoulder catching Zack with one hand – and it wasn’t good enough, _I_ wasn’t good enough, and now –“

“Jason, stop it,” Kim cut in, rubbing gentle circles on his still-tender right shoulder. Jason blew a frustrated breath out through his nose and let his head droop forward. “We’re all taking this hard, believe me, but you can’t keep going on like this, you’re gonna kill yourself with guilt you don’t deserve. You said yourself you did everything you could; just because you fall short of god mode one time doesn’t make you responsible.”

“So what does it make me?”

“Human,” Kim answered, giving him a gentle shake. Jason finally turned and looked her square in the eye.

“Do you get the feeling we’re doing something backwards here?”

“Hey, just because you’ve arbitrarily assigned yourself the role of my big brother doesn’t mean you get a monopoly on good advice.”

Both of them smiled at that; Kim actually chuckled a little, surprising herself with how quickly she was recovering. Jason’s smile, however, faded almost as soon as it appeared, and he stared somberly down at Trini.

“She’s hurt pretty bad, isn’t she?”

Kim sighed. “Yeah, she is. Adam said she has four broken ribs, three broken fingers, a punctured lung and a concussion. She’s hurt almost as badly as you were.” Jason didn’t turn to look at her, but Kim didn’t miss the way he furrowed his brow in confusion. “The bottoms of your feet looked like someone had tried to flay you alive, Jason. Your shoulder was the size of a goddamn watermelon, every piece of your skin I could see was a different color; half your ribs were cracked and your…your head…” Kim leaned around Jason and examined the back of his head in shock. “Jesus Christ, Jason, how did you heal so fast?”

He cocked his head toward her again. “What?”

She stood up and peered at the back of his head. “The back of your head was cut so badly we could see the cracks in your skull, I remember Tommy saying it looked like a windshield that had been hit with a rock.” Kim prodded the back of Jason’s head as if trying to find the wound that was no longer there. “There’s no way you should be recovered this much without being morphed.”

Jason shrugged. “I’ve always healed fast,” he mumbled, resting his elbow on the table and propping his head up with it. “Though right now it doesn’t really mean a whole lot if I can’t do anything for Trini.”

“Just you being here is doing more than you think.”

He raised an eyebrow. Kim smiled. “You’re good for her; anybody with a brain can see it. You should hear the way she talks about you, Jase. I’ve never heard her so inspired by anyone. She told me once that she always feels stronger when you’re around, that just knowing you’re nearby is enough to make her feel better.” Kim stopped and wrinkled her nose, making a face of mock disgust. “It’s kinda nauseating, actually.”

“This coming from the girl who wrote her wedding vows when she was nine.”

“I seem to remember telling you I would kill you if you ever brought that up again.”

Jason chuckled softly. Kim sat back down and rubbed his back.

“What happened out there, Jason?” Kim asked quietly. The two exchanged a look, and Jason adjusted his weight on the stool.

“They came completely out of nowhere,” he began, and then he told her everything, from his interrupted phone call with his mother until he’d woken up in the Medical Bay to see Kim and Tommy standing over him. Kim nodded every so often but didn’t ask questions. When he finished, she told her own story. After that, the two of them sat there in silence for several minutes, listening to the steady beeping of Trini’s heart monitor. The gravity of what lay before them had slowly begun to sink in, the terror beyond the Command Center walls growing heavier and heavier on their minds. Finally, Kim stretched and turned to Jason.

“You should get some rest, Jase. If this situation is as bad as we all think it is, we’re gonna need you. Trini’s gonna need you. And if I’m being frank, you look like shit.” He glared at her playfully. She was treading dangerous ground with that one – only a handful of people could talk to Jason like that and expect to eat solid food again. “Go take a shower, get some clean clothes on; maybe even take a nap if you feel like it. I’ll stay here with Trini until she wakes up.”

“Kim, I’m fine,” Jason argued, squeezing Trini’s hand. “I can hold off on all of that until I know she’s OK.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Jason,” Kim said. “I know you, and I know that ‘I’m fine’ is like your code for ‘I feel like shit but I’ll kick your ass for pointing it out to me.’ You don’t like to admit it but you’re probably the most important piece of this team; in a lot of ways you’re the rock that keeps us all steady.” He smiled softly and blushed a little. “We’re gonna need you at your best if we want to even stand a chance. Now get your ass out of here or I’m gonna bitch about me and Tommy’s relationship problems until you want to kill yourself.”

Jason gaped at her, mouth hanging open. “You wouldn’t.”

She held up a finger. “I do believe you were the one who offered to be our marriage counselor.”

“Yeah, while I was high out of my mind on painkillers,” he protested. “I’m no expert but something tells me that little detail robs that statement of a certain degree of legitimacy.” Kim said nothing, just shrugged and smirked devilishly at him. He shook his head in disbelief. “You are a deeply disturbed human being, you know that?”

She grinned smugly. “I guess my dad was right about you being a bad influence.”

“You hate your dad.”

“I hate my Philosophy professor, too, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think he’s right every once in a while.”

Jason sighed and lowered his head. She wanted this one so badly, she could have it. He was in no condition to tolerate Kimberly Hart’s patented brand of torment any longer than medically necessary. “All right, all right, shit. I know when I’m beat.” He lifted Trini’s hand to his mouth, kissed it, and set it tenderly down on her stomach. “When she wakes up –“

“You’ll be the second to know.”

He smiled and turned to leave. As he neared the door, Kim suddenly jumped up and ran to catch up to him.

“Jason, wait.” He turned to face her. Kim slowed to a stop and hesitated.

“I, uh…” He nodded once and she swallowed hard before going on. “Look, I know I said I didn’t come in here to defend Tommy, but…” she trailed off and Jason folded his arms skeptically over his chest. “Jase, you should’ve seen yourself. When you found out how bad Zack was hurt you went crazy, you were thrashing around on the bed like you were Hulking out or something. You ripped out one of your IVs, you were rubbing your wrists raw trying to push the equipment away…I swear to god you were this close to falling off the table. It could’ve killed you. I know Tommy may have made the wrong decision in retrospect but honestly, if it had been me, then, in the heat of that moment…” she looked him dead in the eye. “I probably would’ve done the same damn thing.” She patted him on the shoulder and turned back into the room. “Just something to think about.”

Jason closed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair. Still favoring his injured feet, the Red Ranger stepped gingerly into the hallway, staring back over his shoulder at Trini’s still form until the door slid shut between them.

* * *

 **Main Chamber  
** **3:30 PM PDT**

Adam let his head flop back against the side of the console, staring up at the distant ceiling of the Main Chamber and trying to quell the rising feeling of hopelessness that had started to take root over the last couple of hours. The lights in the Main Chamber had dimmed after several minutes without any kind of movement; the soft beeping of the consoles and the hum of Zordon’s energy tube were the only sounds. They’d turned off the Viewing Globe after they’d all stumbled, shell-shocked, out of the Medical Bay and wandered off in their own separate directions. Besides, despite all of their loud protests and – apparently – Rocky, Tommy and Kim attempting to secretly teleport out at least once each – Zordon had insisted that the attacks had quieted down and essentially forced them into staying put in the Command Center until they’d all recovered and rested. Teleportation had actually been shut off, so for the time being they were basically stuck in here. He figured it would do none of them any good to dwell on what had happened today.

Adam had considered following the others off to their private quarters but for some reason shutting himself into his room and rendering himself not only angry, scared, depressed and anxious but also alone just hadn’t seemed like an appetizing proposition for some reason. Huh. Surprise, surprise.

Sighing, Adam glanced around, making out a couple of other silhouettes in the faint light. Kat, Tanya and Billy had decided to join him, none of them wanting to isolate themselves, and now they had sat in silence for the last forty five minutes, staring blankly into space or crying, in the case of Tanya, who sat across the room from Adam against the base of the Viewing Globe; Kat and Billy sat beside each other on another wall, beside Zordon’s tube. From Adam’s position, their faces were eerily lit with a pale blue light that made their features appear drawn and hollow, highlighting the despair that had slowly intensified the longer they’d sat.

_And we were afraid of being alone…why, again?_ Adam chuckled angrily to himself at the cruelty of irony. _Right, because we’re just_ so _much happier out here._

The door to the main corridor slid open and loud footsteps came storming in, flipping all the lights on and causing groans of protest from the gathered Rangers in the Main Chamber. The footsteps stopped suddenly and Adam heard an angry snort.

“Nice to see you all are being so productive,” Tommy’s voice sneered, before the footsteps resumed again and faded into the personal quarters.

“Nice to see you’re still an asshole!” Billy called after him, much to Adam’s surprise. He glanced from Billy and Kat to Tanya, who was dabbing her eyes with a piece of the filthy shirt she still hadn’t changed out of. As he watched, she dissolved into another round of sobs, her shoulders shaking as she wept.

“Tanya,” he said softly. She looked up, her bloodshot eyes meeting his. “You wanna come sit with me?”

Tanya nodded slowly and trotted across the Main Chamber, where she curled into Adam’s side as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. They sat that way for a while, silent, until the lights dimmed again. Once the insulating darkness was back in place, Tanya took a shaky breath and whispered in his ear.

“Do you think he felt any of it?”

He turned to look at her but his cheek bumped against her head and he ended up staring past her into the floor. “You mean Zack?” He felt her nod against his face and heard a sniffle. “God, I hope not.”

Tanya blew out a quavering breath. “He was still alive when he teleported in, we don’t know how quickly he lost consciousness or how long he took to…”

Adam actually recoiled a little bit; he couldn’t help himself. “Jesus Christ, Tanya, why are you dwelling on this so much?”

“I just watched dozens of people die right in front of me Adam; I think I’m entitled to a little morbid musing.”

“Bullshit,” he said softly. Tanya’s words said one thing, but the hitch in her breath and the strain in her voice told a very different story. She sputtered a little in protest but he silenced her quick. “There’s something you’re not telling me.” He reached up and gently pushed her chin up so she faced him. “What happened to you guys out there?”

Tanya was quiet for several moments; Adam felt her heart pounding against his ribs, the tattered bits of fabric from her shirt draping over his knee. When she finally spoke, it was to the floor.

“That could’ve been me.”

He frowned at her. “What?”

“You saw Zack, right?” He nodded. She squeezed her rapidly moistening eyes and went on. “Besides the, uh…obvious…did you notice anything strange?”

Adam chuckled in disbelief. “Tanya, his fucking legs were gone, his entire upper body was burnt to a crisp…exactly what was I supposed to have noticed?”

She pulled away a little and leaned back against the console. “His legs were severed with surgical precision, Adam, Billy even said so. From his left leg to his right hand everything below a certain point was gone along a perfectly straight line. How would you explain that?”

He stared at her. “I don’t remember exactly what Billy said – to be honest, most of that hour is kind of a blur – but I do remember hearing Kim say something about a green energy field…thing.” She nodded and opened her mouth, but he held up a finger. “Hold on a second. Don’t take this the wrong way, but are you absolutely sure about all this? I mean, we weren’t exactly climbing over each other to get a closer look at him. Hell, one quick glance and I was ready for a little brain bleach.”

“I know what I saw, Adam,” she replied calmly. “It was kind of hard to miss after what happened back at the Youth Center –“

“Speaking of which, you guys still haven’t said a word to me about what happened after I left.”

“This isn’t gonna go anywhere if we keep talking over each other,” she interjected, glaring at him. “Those wounds were _perfect._ They looked like cross-sections they would use at a medical school. Could a collapsing building just do that by accident?” She sat there as if waiting for his reply. When none came, she went on. “Anyway, you remember that explosion that went off right before you got hurt?” He gave her a look that said he did. “Well, right after you left, we saw what was causing them. There was this…enormous orange fireball that just dropped right on top of us like a bomb from a plane. And it wasn’t the only one. Between the time you left and the time the rest of us got back I counted at least five more. One of them was this weird silvery color and it…” she trailed off and glanced away for a moment, sighing. “I’ll tell you later. Anyway, there was another one that was some shade of turquoise, kind of like your uniform color only a touch bluer. Tommy and I had come running out of the Youth Center and we had to tackle the others out of the way. Or, well, Tommy did. I, on the other hand, being the brilliant tactician that I am, ended up lying half on top of Kat in the middle of a bombed-out street while this thing came charging toward us. And you want to know the weirdest part?”

“It gets worse?”

“You have no idea.”

“Why do I suddenly get the feeling that having a shard of glass the size of my hand stabbed into my back was the best thing to happen to me all day?”

“Probably because it was,” Tanya said, wiping her eyes. “The weirdest part was that as inherently deadly as this thing looked, as powerful as the shockwave was, as devastating as all the other fireballs had been, this one just flew past cars and buildings and trees like they weren’t even there. Somehow, though, some part of me knew the thing was lethal; it wasn’t until Kim brought it up back in the Medical Bay that I finally put two and two together.” She pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them. “When Kat and I were lying in the street, that field came within an inch of my face. It literally dissolved so close to me that I could feel the residual heat it left behind.” She reached up and tucked a strand of filthy hair behind her ear, her fingers tracing faint lines in the grime that streaked her face. Adam was quiet, just watching her, waiting for her to continue. “At the time, I didn’t know what to make of it, I thought I just lucked out on escaping from some kind of really nasty radiation or something, but then I saw Zack and I heard what Kim said, and…” Tanya made an exasperated gesture with her hands and let them flop into her lap.

“And now you can’t stop thinking about how close you came,” Adam finished for her. She smiled and reached up to take the hand that he still had draped around her shoulders.

“I wish that’s as far as it went.” Her voice was so low it was barely audible, yet to Adam the words seemed to reverberate off the thick stone walls of the Main Chamber and pound into his ears. He started to adjust his weight to turn toward her but at the slightest indication of movement she dug her fingers into his hand in a vice grip. As he leaned back against the console she continued. “Every time I close my eyes I see it coming at me, this giant wall of green light, and I hold my breath and clench my fists and squeeze Kat against the ground behind me just like I did out there, only…” Tanya blinked her glistening eyes. “Only now it doesn’t stop, now it just charges right over me like a herd of stampeding rhinos and I can feel my face start to crumble away, everything the light touches just starts cracking and falling off in chunks and dissolving into ash and dirt…and then the pain hits and I know for a fact that I’m going to die.” She looked up at him, twin tears streaking down her cheeks. Adam ran his tongue over his lips and started and stopped a few times before he found words.

“My god, Tan,” he croaked, squeezing her hand again. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t…”

“How am I ever gonna be able to sleep again?” Tanya asked to the darkness. Planting a gentle, reassuring kiss on the top of Tanya’s head, Adam let his head fall back against the console and went back to staring at the ceiling for a moment before the door to the main corridor opened again. This time, it was Jason that came through it, seeming far less worked up than Tommy was. His footsteps slowed to a halt just inside the door. After a moment, he spoke to no one in particular, all five people in the room shielding their eyes against the renewed intensity of the light.

“Shit, we have to work on dimming these down a little,” the Red Ranger groaned. He was quiet for a long moment; from Adam’s position behind the console, Jason’s face wasn’t visible, but he could imagine what the muscular, dark-haired young man was doing – glancing around the Main Chamber in confusion.

“What’s going on? Why aren’t we doing anything?”

Before any of the gathered Rangers could reply, Zordon’s visage shimmered into view in his tube. “Jason,” he said softly. “The attacks worldwide have quieted significantly over the past several hours. I have ordered all of you confined to the Command Center until you have recovered to battle-readiness.”

“Zordon, what-“

“Red Ranger.” Zordon’s voice was suddenly, unnaturally harsh; Jason raised an eyebrow and had to stop himself from taking an involuntary step backward. Adam felt Tanya jump a little; the Asian boy peered up at Zordon, puzzled. Billy and Kat had moved around to the front of the tube, trying to get a read on Zordon’s face as their mentor spoke. “Until I deem every single one of you to be at one hundred percent battle capacity, no Ranger leaves the Command Center. That is an order.” With that, Zordon shimmered out again, retiring to another room in the Command Center where he could interface with the systems.

Jason blinked a few times and let out a surprised chuckle. “Um…did I just get grounded?”

“Could’ve been worse,” Adam said, rising to his feet. “He could’ve whipped out the whole line about ‘I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.’”

Jason cringed. “Ooh. Yeah, that one blows.” He shifted his weight awkwardly on his injured feet. “Look guys, I’m gonna go take a shower and possibly pass out on my bed. Let me know if the rest of you get to ‘battle-readiness’ without me,” he announced, drawing air quotes around Zordon’s words. With that, Jason turned and headed toward the private quarters.

“Yeah, I think I’ll come with,” Billy said, moving unsteadily in Jason’s direction. Kat followed, one arm extended toward Billy as though she were spotting him.

“I think I’ll take a turn in the chop- I mean, the Medical Bay,” Kat quickly amended at Billy’s look. “I’m starting to get a headache.”

“You should go too,” Adam said, pulling Tanya to her feet. “Get that arm taken care of so you can get cleaned up. Hey.” She glanced into his eyes. “It’ll be OK. Trust me.”

Tanya didn’t reply, just nodded and followed Kat out the door. Adam looked around the now silent, deserted Main Chamber for a minute before grunting with frustration and jogging after Jason and Billy.

“Hey guys! Wait up!”

* * *

 **Command Center  
** **Rocky DeSantos’ Private Quarters  
** **3:30 PM PDT**

“Fuck!”

Rocky yanked his hand free of his communicator and flung it across the room, taking twisted satisfaction in the echoing clatter it made as it bounced off the floor and came to rest against the wall across from where he sat on the bed. Running a frustrated hand through his hair, he jumped to his feet and started pacing his bedroom, his bare feet alternating between the cold metal floor near the doorway and the soft, crimson carpeting that covered the back half of the room. His movements were jerky, awkward, the pain in his left side still limiting his range of motion; as hard as he tried, he found stomping around the way he wanted to be incredibly painful.

“This is a goddamn nightmare,” he muttered to himself, slapping the edge of the desk as he walked by. Had Zordon completely lost his mind? The entire planet was under attack, people were dying at a terrifying rate, and their great, wise mentor’s response was to shut off teleportation and keep the only people capable of ending the destruction stuck in their hidey-hole like caged animals. He’d been trying to find a way to teleport back to Angel Grove for the last forty-five minutes but he was no Billy. Whatever that old Eltarian bastard had done seemed to be working.

His eyes lifted to the wall above his door and Rocky stopped suddenly and jabbed a finger at the crucifix that still hung over his door.

“Don’t you look at me like that,” he growled. “Not like _you’ve_ been much help lately.” Rocky let his finger drop and chuckled humorlessly.

“Great,” he said, striding slowly to the door. “Awesome. I’m talking to statues now.” Rocky lowered a shoulder and shoved the door open, jumping back in surprise at the startled yelp that erupted from the other side.

“Whoa!” He shouted, gripping the doorframe to keep from falling on his ass. “What the hell –“

Rocky stopped short at the sight of the chocolate-colored face that poked out from behind the door, a sheepish smile creeping across it. “Is this a good time? Because if you’re still busy arguing with Jesus I could come back.” Aisha pointed a finger toward the top edge of the doorframe and arched her eyebrows.

“Sha, hey,” Rocky stammered. “Yeah, uh, come in.” He stepped back and watched as Aisha slowly curled around the edge of the door and moved past him into the room. As she brushed by, he caught a whiff of something, a sort of faint citrus scent that sent an involuntary chill down his spine.

“I wanted to apologize for snapping at you earlier,” she said with her back to him. “That wasn’t fair.” Aisha crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed, folding her hands nervously in her lap.

“Don’t worry about it, I understand.” Rocky swung the door closed and leaned back against it, shoving his hands into the pockets of his torn jeans. The two of them just looked at each other for a minute across the room, fidgeting nervously as each hunted for something to say. Finally, Rocky broke the silence.

“Want something to drink?” Aisha cocked her head at him and Rocky smirked and held up a finger. He pushed himself off the door, limped across the room and opened a cupboard under his desk to reveal a small refrigerator, paneled with faux wood grain.

“You know we have an entire kitchen full of food right down the hall, right?” She asked quietly. He threw her a look and she rolled her eyes and snorted. “Right. Stupid question. Of course you do. You spend so much time there we’ve considered naming the damn thing after you.”

He grinned. “Really? I’m flattered.” Rocky reached into the fridge and pulled out a tall bottle of clear liquid with a bright red label on it. “Drink?”

Aisha’s eyes widened in surprise. “Is that Smirnoff?”

Rocky nodded once, emphatically. “Damn right it is.”

Aisha chuckled in disbelief. “Zordon’s told us a million times that we can’t have alcohol in here.”

“Yeah, well,” Rocky said with a shrug, nudging the fridge door closed. “I’ve never really been as good at the whole ‘perfect soldier’ thing as Jason and Tommy are.” He gestured with the bottle. “Now do you want a drink or not?”

She hesitated. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea right now, Rocko.”

He set the bottle down on the counter and sighed, suddenly somber. “Zack’s dead, Sha. I think we’re entitled to a little wiggle room.” He glanced around a few times and grunted in frustration. “Only problem is, I don’t have any glasses in here.”

Aisha sat up a little straighter, her mind made up. “You know what? Screw the rules, I fell out of a fucking plane today. Just give me the bottle.”

Rocky raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Really?”

“Don’t make me take it from you.”

Rocky spread his arms in a gesture of surrender and made his way to the bed, where he handed Aisha the bottle and sat down next to her. The purple-clad girl spun the cap off the bottle and raised it to her lips, taking a long swig before pulling away, the liquid sloshing back to the bottom.

“Whoa, whoa, holy shit,” Rocky hissed, snatching the bottle away from her. “What the hell are you doing? Thirty seconds ago you were doing your damnedest to play the voice of reason and now you’re takin’ pulls straight out of the bottle? What, did you catch schizophrenia in Africa somewhere and never tell anyone?”

Aisha delicately wiped a bit of moisture from the corner of her mouth and leveled her gaze at him. “I don’t know,” she said sarcastically. “I guess I just suddenly realized that I was sitting in someone else’s bedroom, on someone else’s bed, in what could be the only place on the entire planet that hasn’t had the crap blasted out of it by a bunch of bad _War of the Worlds_ imitators while one of my best friends is lying dead a few rooms away and billions of other people are running around dying horrible deaths outside and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. Not to mention the fact that – and I can’t believe I have to say this twice – _I fell out of a fucking plane_ less than four hours ago and nearly died myself. If you’ve ever heard a better excuse to get wasted, please tell me, because I would _love_ to hear it.”

“OK, slow down there, Sarah Connor,” Rocky said quickly, pulling the bottle out of Aisha’s reach and holding up a finger. “I’m pretty sure I asked if you wanted _a_ drink, that’s ‘a’ as in ‘singular,’ not ‘a’ as in ‘chug vodka from the bottle until you start naming your braids and singing Alicia Keys into a spoon.’” She glared at him but he plowed ahead. “Yes, I’ve seen you drunk and I know exactly what you do, and I’m telling you, Sha, this is absolutely the wrong time for that. Believe me, I hate that Zordon doesn’t seem to want us doing anything productive right now, and a part of me died with Zack, but we’re not gonna be helping anybody if we’re too shitfaced to hold our morphers properly. Besides,” he turned and pointed above the door. “Jesus is watching.”

Aisha grunted and waved a hand dismissively. “Like that’s meant shit to you the last few years.”

He shrugged. “Granted, but my argument still stands.”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. You’re still a –“ Rocky stood up and turned his back to her and Aisha finally noticed the grisly burns that covered the back of his neck. She gasped in shock and clapped a hand over her mouth.

“What?” He turned back to face her and saw her eyes still widening. He frowned, suddenly concerned. “Sha? You OK?”

She let out a small chuckle of surprise. “I could ask you the same question,” she breathed, searching his face for some indication of pain. “Rocko, what happened to the back of your neck?”

“What? Nothing, I’m…” he reached back to feel the back of his neck and suddenly winced and nearly dropped the bottle.

“ _Ow!_ ” He cried, yanking his hand away. “Son of a _bitch_. How bad is it?”

Aisha cleared her throat. “Well…”

“Don’t give me any sugarcoating bullshit, Sha, just spit it out.”

“The back of your neck looks like burnt hamburger,” she said quickly, blurting it out before she lost her nerve. “You should be in the Med Bay right now, not here having a drink.”

He shook his head. “You know, it’s actually not that bad; I think I’ll be OK if I can just lie down for a minute.” He moved back toward the bed, but she stood up and gripped his shoulders, turning him around by force and steering him toward the door, taking the vodka from him and returning it to the fridge as they went by.

“Oh, no you don’t. You, my friend, have officially been hanging around Jason too much. God, you Reds are all the same.”

“Kind of a small sample group for that hypothesis, don’t you think?” Rocky asked, affecting his best Billy impression. Aisha chuckled; as she turned to close the door to Rocky’s room behind them, he turned back and regarded her again.

“Wait a minute. Did you really fall out of a plane?”

* * *

 **Command Center**  
 **Jason Scott’s Private Quarters  
** **4:00 PM PDT**

It wasn’t until the spray of water actually hit him that Jason realized he’d never needed a shower so badly in his life. He stood motionless for several minutes, letting the steaming hot water flow over him, massaging a lot of the tension out of his muscles and, more importantly, washing the grime and blood off his face. He hadn’t even been able to look in the bathroom mirror as he went past it into the shower, having felt the splash of foreign blood on his face slowly caking dry over the last several hours; thankfully, his friends had all been able to avoid bringing it up.

And then there was the other thing. Alone with his thoughts and the sound of the running water, Jason’s mind had inevitably settled on the stark reality of the last few hours, the inescapable truth he found himself still struggling to come to terms with.

_Zack is dead._

The words pounded against the inside of his skull like a frantic prisoner begging to be set free; images of his memories with the Black Ranger flashed indiscriminately, randomly, before his closed eyes, a veritable slide show of painful nostalgia that brought a lump to his throat. Jason had to fight to keep his breathing under control, allowing nothing more than a few hot, angry tears that were rendered invisible by the stream of water. His fists clenched and unclenched, fingernails digging into his palms; his gasping, choking breaths hitched painfully in his throat, and still the Red Ranger would not allow the grief to consume him completely.

Throwing a hand up against the white plastic wall of the shower, Jason concentrated as hard as he could on staying calm, turning the grief into something productive. It had worked after the death of his infant sister when he was thirteen; it had to work now, or they were all royally fucked.

Making matters even worse was what still awaited them beyond the Command Center’s walls, the impossibly powerful enemy that had taken their entire planet by surprise, rendering a once prosperous oasis of life in the desert of space into little more than a charred cinder. It was then, as the water roared in his ears and pelted his bare skin and memories of his life with Zack played over and over again in his head like a never-ending slideshow of grief, that Jason Scott made a promise to himself, one he intended to sacrifice anything to keep. Whoever – whatever – these bastards were, they had robbed him of a best friend and damn near deprived him of a planet. He would not allow their onslaught to go unheeded. If Earth was going down, humanity was damn well not going quietly. He would see to that.

This wasn’t just one of Rita and Zedd’s plots to conquer their planet; this was all-out, full scale war. And it had just been made intensely personal. If he had anything to say about it, every last one of those alien fuckers would pay.

The thought made him feel considerably better. He would have to ask Billy or Adam about the untapped medicinal properties of blood oaths.

_Huh. Maybe the Vikings were on to something after all_ , Jason thought, a wry half smile creeping across his face as he wrapped a fiery red towel around himself and wiped some of the steam off the bathroom mirror. He stood there for a moment and examined himself, tracing the paths of the scars from all those terrible battles that crisscrossed his upper torso and left faint pockmarks in the skin of his face where he’d been hit by tiny shards of shrapnel at the Peace Conference campus. Every line of wrinkled pink flesh that stood out from the rest like a subway track map reminded him of something else about Zack, some battle where he’d saved Jason’s ass or had a good cool down session with him after something got fucked up; the time just after Tommy had joined them that Jason and Zack had sat down, just the two of them, and argued every possible pro, con and perspective of bringing the new guy onto their team. Even now, Jason smiled to himself as he remembered Zack playing devil’s advocate. The guy had always seemed to take some kind of twisted satisfaction from it.

_“Like I’ve said about fifteen trillion times, dude, nothing he did was his choice. The spell’s broken, we have the coin, he seems extremely remorseful, and most importantly, we need him,” Jason had said, glancing sidelong at Zack. “Rita’s only gotten more powerful since we started, we have to compensate. I’m not gonna sit around in here trying to play catchup while we have a perfectly good new asset right in front of our faces.” The two of them sat with their backs against the large, triangular protrusion that extended from the Command Center’s roof, looking out into the distance as the sun set over the mountainous desert. Zack snorted and shifted his weight, pulling one knee up toward his chest so his foot lay flat._

_“Yeah, we need him all right,” Zack replied. “Here we have the guy who was Rita’s ‘greatest warrior’, her ‘ultimate champion,’ blah blah fuckity blah. We took him down; what else is she gonna do?”_

_“That’s big talk coming from the guy who called the Green Ranger Rita’s trump card,” Jason countered, gesturing with a finger. “’She played it. She won. Cue dramatic music, fade to black.’ Any of this ringing a bell?”_

_“I’m sorry; I missed the part where it suddenly became OK for you to use my Heroic Blue Screen of Death moment as a cover up for your chronic Big Brother complex.”_

_“You wanna run that one by me one more time?”_

_Zack turned and glanced at Jason, who was peering intensely out at the sunset, the outline of the mountains drawing a sharp line of shadow across his face. “Why do you get all broody every time I bring that up?”_

_Jason let his head fall back against the wall and chuckled bitterly. “Because you can’t fucking_ stop _bringing it up, no matter how irrelevant it becomes; which, may I remind you, is more every day.”_

_There was a long pause before Jason spoke again. “Anyway, as I was saying, I broke the spell, it’s over, she has no power over him anymore. He’s a good guy if you just give him a chance; I don’t see what the big problem is here.”_

_“And you became an expert in how Rita’s spells work, what, last night?” Zack rolled his eyes and wrapped his arms around his knees. “He’s too much of a loose cannon, Jase. For all we know there’s some residual power left over from the spell that Rita can tap into any time she wants.” He poked Jason’s left bicep with his index finger. “You want to do this so fucking badly, that’s your call; I’ve spent too long following your dumb ass without dying to turn on you now. But the day he goes all_ Manchurian Candidate _on us you don’t get to come crying to me.”_

_“That assumes that I would ever actually cry,” Jason retorted with a smirk._

_“Oh, come on,” Zack laughed, turning to look at Jason in a way that aligned his head perfectly with the sun, giving the appearance of a glowing halo around his head. “Even you have to have a soft spot. What is it, puppies? Pretty girls in trouble? The deadly combo of sports and daddy issues?”_

_The two of them threw their heads back and laughed, letting the tension of the last two weeks just slide away like it wasn’t even there. Jason stood and joined Zack at the edge of the roof, sliding his hands into his pockets as the two of them gazed out over the sharply contrasted moonscape that seemed to stretch on into infinity in all directions, the shadows cast by the rapidly setting sun forming great seas of black stretching away from the horizon._

_“This really is a fantastic view,” Jason noted quietly, lowering himself to a seated position and dangling his legs over the edge. “I can see now why Trini spends so much time up here.” Zack sat down next to him and made eye contact._

_“Jase,” he practically whispered, curling his fingers around the edge of the roof. “As much as I would love to give you all thirty-one Baskin Robbins flavors of shit about your…” he made a vague gesture with his hands. “…your whole…_ thing _…with Trini, whatever it is, I’m not gonna let you change the subject on me.” Jason glanced up at him. “Tommy nearly killed all of us; Billy just barely got everything in the Command Center back online. Do you have any idea what it was like when you were missing and none of us knew what was going on?”_

_“I can imagine.”_

_“I don’t think you can.” Zack leaned back and rested his weight on his elbows. “For a little while there, right up until Billy finally locked onto your signal, we started wondering if what we got back was even gonna look like you anymore.”_

_“It almost didn’t,” Jason interjected, turning to his friend with a raised eyebrow. “That was the day Billy and Alpha perfected their dramatic timing with the teleportation unit and damn near got me killed in the process.”_

_Zack looked at him like he was crazy. “You mean_ Tommy _damn near got you killed.”_

_“Why is it so hard for you to stop blaming him for things he had no control over?”_

_“Why is it so easy for you to forgive him for all the shit he put us through, especially you?”_

_Jason made a sweeping motion with one hand. “Nothing Tommy did under the influence of that spell was his fault. Period. The end. The spell is broken. It’s over.” He regarded Zack with a look of stubborn finality and his friend raised his hands before him, palms out._

_“OK, man, OK. If you say so; I’ve never had any reason not to trust your judgment so far, why start now?”_

_“Awesome. Now can we change the subject?”_

_“Of course, O Fearless Leader, I-“_

_“I swear to god if you call me that one more time I will push you off the roof, man. I am not even kidding.”_

_“Whatever,” Zack said with a laugh. “You know you like it. Now as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, there has to be_ something _out there that even you would get choked up over. What about the end of_ Field of Dreams _?”_

_“Dunno,” Jason answered with a shrug. “Never seen it.”_

_Zack just gaped at him openmouthed. “And you call yourself a man. We are gonna watch that damn movie if it kills us, and I bet you thirty bucks you cry like a baby.”_

_“Sweet. Easiest thirty bucks I’ll ever make.”_

Turns out he was right. It had taken several months, and Zack and Billy had warmed up to Tommy considerably by that point, but the four male Rangers finally had a chance to sit down and have a real “bro moment,” watching _Field of Dreams_ on Billy’s 55-inch TV. When it was all over, Jason had turned to Zack, more than willing to let him see how choked up he was getting, only to see the Black and Blue Rangers practically sobbing. They were so distracted that Jason had the chance to clear his throat, steady his breathing, and dry his eyes before either of them even noticed him. He’d managed to catch Tommy’s eye and give him a subtle shake of the head, which the Green Ranger still felt too much like an outsider to defy.

Jason shook his head at his reflection in the mirror, running a hand over his face. Finally, he turned on his heel and headed for the door, reaching up to remove his towel as he did so. The door slid open before him and Jason came within centimeters of plowing into the person who stood in the doorway.

“What the…!” Jason jerked back and yanked the towel back up. The figure in Jason’s way was dressed in a blue T-shirt and black athletic shorts, and adjusted his glasses nervously on his nose as he stumbled back into Jason’s bedroom. “Billy? The hell are you doing in here?”

“I could ask you the same question,” Billy said, plopping down onto the chair against the far wall. Jason cocked his head at his friend.

“Uh…this is my bedroom,” Jason said slowly, as though speaking to a mental patient.

“Yeah, and you’ve been in that bathroom for more than forty-five minutes,” Billy noted, leaning back in the chair. “And since I’ve never known you to take a shower longer than five minutes in my entire life, I thought there might be something else going on.” Jason blinked a few times and looked away, running a hand through his hair. “I’ll take that as a yes.” Billy stood and walked up behind Jason, laying a hand on his bare shoulder. “What were you doing in there?”

Jason looked up and glanced over his shoulder at Billy. “Just thinking about how I’ll never be able to watch _Field of Dreams_ ever again.”

Billy nodded solemnly and let his hand drop. “About…that,” he stammered, crossing and uncrossing his arms as though he’d never used them before. Jason frowned at him. Billy blew out a nervous breath and continued. “I want to do an autopsy on the bod- on Zack,” he said, his voice trembling slightly. “I think I could get some valuable intel from examining his wounds, we could discern the nature of our adversaries’ weaponry, perhaps even use it to amend our own munitions to better combat them, and…”

“Billy, slow down,” Jason said softly, holding out a hand in a gesture he hoped was calming. “You’re telling me that you can figure out something about these assholes’ weapons if you examine him?” Billy nodded.

“But I wanted to make sure everyone was OK with it first. I figured I’d start with you.”

“Well, I, uh…” Jason stopped suddenly and looked down at himself. “I am wearing far too much nothing to be talking about this; let me grab some pants.” He strode over to the dresser on the wall opposite Billy and started to let the towel drop before he realized that Billy was still there. “Uh, dude? You mind?”

“Jase, I’m the team doctor,” Billy said, sitting down on the edge of Jason’s bed. “I’ve seen far more of all of you people than I ever wanted to. Besides, no offense, but you’re not really my type.”

“Oh yeah, that’s right,” Jason said with a smirk, casually removing the towel and draping it over the mirror while he rummaged around for some clean clothes. “Your type runs more toward the tall, blonde and Australian doesn’t it?”

Billy glanced up into the mirror, his face quickly reddening. “This is dangerous ground you’re treading, Scott. Lest you forget, I’m one of maybe two people here who could kill you and not leave a shred of evidence. And you’re kind of attached to the other one.”

Jason arched his eyebrows and looked at Billy in the mirror. “Whoa, Billy. That one hit a little too close to home for ya?”

“In the vernacular: fuck off, Jason,” Billy groaned, falling back onto the bed.

Jason actually laughed, something he hadn’t thought he’d be able to do for a little while yet. “Dude, chill. I’m just trying to spare you and Kat from going through the whole back and forth runaround bullshit that Trini and I had to deal with. Next time you see her, just ask her to talk and go somewhere private and tell her how you feel. Trust me, I wish I’d done that a long time ago.”

“Yeah but you and Trini have known each other since you were five. Kat’s only been in Angel Grove a few months since Kim left for Florida and she’s spent most of that time drooling over Tommy.”

“You noticed that too, huh?” Jason shrugged into a red Under Armor T-shirt that fit to his toned upper body and pulled on a pair of khaki cargo shorts and a pair of tennis shoes.

“It was sort of impossible to miss, even to an oblivious idiot like me,” Billy replied, pulling off his glasses and wiping them on his shirt. “Though it does help somewhat that Kat’s apparently allergic to subtlety.”

Jason chuckled. “I wouldn’t put a whole lot of weight on how long you guys have known each other; Tanya seems to have warmed up to Adam pretty fast.” Billy raised an eyebrow.

“How do you know these things?”

“I’m a leader, man; it’s my job to know,” Jason answered, taking a seat in the chair. “Anyway,” he continued with a sigh. “About that other thing you wanted to ask me.”

“I’d understand if you have a problem with it,” Billy said quietly, staring at the floor. “Bad enough he didn’t make it out, now I want to go and cut him up like the catch of the day…”

“Are you trying to talk me into or out of this?” Jason cut in. Billy shrugged and looked up at Jason sheepishly. “Right. Don’t quit your day job.”

“Jason, please. I need to know you’re behind me on this; it’s important that everyone’s on board before I do anything I can’t take back.”

“Come on, Billy, you know me,” Jason said, stretching out his legs and slumping down in the chair. “I’ve _always_ taken your side in this stuff; it’s not me you have to worry about.” Jason steepled his hands in front of his face and frowned over them. “It’s Rocky and Aisha that you’re most likely to have a problem with; I know Rock’s not super into the religion thing anymore but they still might drag their heels. Maybe Tanya, too. Possibly Adam, but to a far lesser degree, since he’s become kind of your assistant in the Med Bay.”

Billy nodded. “OK. Thank you, Jase. Really. It’s good to know you have my back.”

“Always, bro,” Jason said, walking past Billy and holding out a hand. Billy stood and slapped it, and Jason pulled him into a one-armed hug. “This is gonna be a hard one for all of us, man. You gotta stay sharp for me, all right? You’re the rational one.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Billy replied, slapping Jason’s shoulder as the two stepped apart. “This one’s personal. I won’t let you down.”

“Never have.” Jason nodded, and Billy had turned to leave when the door to Jason’s room slid open to reveal a frantic, out-of-breath Kat, leaning against the doorframe to support herself.

“Jason!” She panted, staggering toward them. Billy rushed forward and caught her under the arm. Kat managed to raise her head and look Jason straight in the eye.

“It’s Trini,” the lithe Australian rasped, gripping Billy’s shoulder. “She’s awake.”


	6. Restless Heart Syndrome

**“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.”** **  
-** **C. S. Lewis** ****

**Command Center Training Room  
** **Somewhere Outside Angel Grove, CA  
** **August 28, 2012  
** **4:45 PM PDT**

The sounds of heavy breathing and the rhythmic smacking of fist against sand and canvas greeted Adam as he approached the door to the training room. As he drew closer, he noticed that the door had been deliberately propped open, a thin ray of light spilling out into the corridor; the sounds of pounding music floated out as well, driving guitars and a pulsing bass line interwoven with intense vocals that screamed and growled more often than sang. Frowning slightly in confusion, Adam curled the fingers of his left hand around the door and poked his head in.

Just as he’d thought, Tommy stood inside, still wearing the same torn white T-shirt he’d been wearing at the Youth Center what seemed like an eternity ago; the piece of silver fabric that Tanya had torn off her shirt was still wrapped around his head, rapidly growing darker as his wound continued to bleed. As Adam watched, the White Ranger viciously assaulted a punching bag, landing rapid-fire punches punctuated by the occasional leaping or spinning kick powerful enough to swing the heavy bag back and forth on its chain. The longer he stared into the room, the longer he began to realize what the music was that Tommy had playing. Adam let his hand drop from the door and moved around the corner, stepping fully into the room.

“I thought you hated August Burns Red.” He practically had to shout just to hear himself over the music. Tommy jerked as if shoved and stared blankly at him for a moment; he recovered quickly, blinking a few times and wiping his forehead with the back of one hand.

“Pause,” Tommy said loudly. The music cut off mid-word, the sound leaving the now-silent workout room ringing with leftover reverberations. Tommy unfastened one of his gloves and made eye contact with Adam. “I left my iPod in my gym bag back in the Youth Center locker room so I had to use one of the playlists Jase programmed into this thing when he came back to help us out on that mission a couple months ago.”

“Yeah, he never did teach us how to do that,” Adam replied, leaning against the wall and stroking his chin thoughtfully. Tommy dropped his glove on the ground and turned his attention to the other.

“You never considered asking Billy?” He asked, raising an eyebrow. Adam shrugged and made a gesture with his hands as though weighing something on a balance.

“Five-minute stereo system tutorial from Jason or a three-hour lecture on electronics, amplification, resistors, and sound waves from Billy. Hmmm.” His hands flopped back against his legs. “Yeah, I can see the appeal.”

Tommy glared at him. “Have you always been such a smartass?”

Adam smiled. “I try to be. Thanks for finally noticing.”

This time Tommy didn’t drop the glove on the ground. Instead, he pulled back his arm and flung it right into Adam’s face. Adam leaned ever so slightly to the left and the glove sailed past him and landed in the hallway; he never broke eye contact with Tommy. The latter man groaned, dug a hand into his eyes and turned his back to the doorway, wandering over to a weight bench and starting to absentmindedly curl a pair of barbells. Adam put his hands in his pockets and moved slowly toward him, trying to act casual. Tommy seemed to change his mind and set the barbells aside, choosing instead to lay down on the bench and grab the bar. Adam took his chance and sidled up next to him.

“Need a spot?”

Tommy glanced up at him and sighed. “What I need is to be left the hell alone.”

Adam reached over and leaned on the bar just as Tommy went to lift it. “I think what you need, Tommy, is a trip to the Med Bay to get that head wound looked at. Maybe while you’re in there you can get your brain examined like we’ve all been telling you to all these years.”

Tommy narrowed his eyes at Adam. “There something you want to say to me? Because I am really not in the mood for this bullshit right now.”

“Really?” Adam brought his other arm up and leaned his entire body weight onto the bar, peering down into Tommy’s face. “That’s funny considering that little comment you dropped on us a few minutes ago.”

Tommy sighed and released his hold on the bar, letting his head fall back onto the bench and staring past Adam into the stone ceiling. “Yeah, about that.” He grunted in frustration and rolled his eyes. “That may have been uncalled for.” Adam gave him a look that said “ _ya think?”_ and Tommy waved him off with one hand before letting it fall back onto his chest. “OK, OK, fine. It _was_ uncalled for, I’m a prick, I’m the fucking scum of the Earth. Satisfied?”

“Hey, you said it, not me,” Adam said with a smirk. He lifted his hands off the bar. “Though I was almost content to let you go with just Billy’s comeback. That was kinda epic.”

Tommy smiled a little himself and sat up, resting his arms on his thighs. “Why do you think I stormed out so fast? Little shit caught me completely off guard.”

Adam chuckled and took a step back from the bench, casually folding his arms over his chest. “Seriously, though, is everything OK?” Tommy glanced up at him incredulously and Adam held up a hand. “I mean apart from the obvious. We saw that Jason was awake, I’m guessing he wasn’t exactly ecstatic to see you.”

“Oh no, he was thrilled to see me,” Tommy replied. “I’ve got the bruises on my throat to prove it.” He reached up and absentmindedly massaged his neck.

Adam’s eyes widened. “He actually got physical?”

Tommy snorted. “Can you really blame him? ‘Hey, your best friend since childhood is severely fucked up and probably dying as we speak but I don’t respect you enough to bother with telling you so here’s a shot of horse tranquilizer instead,’” Tommy snarled, punctuating his sentence by jabbing his fist against the side of his own leg. He looked up at Adam with a bitter half-smile. “If he hadn’t still been wobbly on his feet and probably a little disoriented Jason would’ve beaten me to a pulp. And the worst part is that I’m becoming less and less convinced I wouldn’t have deserved it.”

Adam made an exaggerated thoughtful face for a few seconds before waving a dismissive hand at Tommy. “Meh. I know from a certain friend of mine who used to wear my color a lot that Jason’s sort of the forgiving type.” Tommy’s expression softened ever so slightly and Adam went in for the kill. “Besides, this time you’re not even trying to kill everyone. He’s almost obligated just to keep from looking like a hypocrite.”

Tommy’s eyes darkened quickly. He didn’t say anything, just glowered at Adam from the weight bench. The current Green Ranger blew a sharp breath out through his nose. “That was a joke.”

Tommy shook his head slowly and got to his feet. “That was in bad taste even for you.”

“Hey, it got the point across, didn’t it? Now come on,” Adam grabbed Tommy by the shoulder and steered him toward the door. “I wasn’t kidding about having your brain examined. We don’t need half our field leadership going into battle with a concussion.”

Tommy threw up an arm as they reached the open door and leaned against the doorframe, regarding his friend under the harsh fluorescent bulb that shone down from above the doorway. “When did you suddenly become the responsible one?”

“I took lessons when you weren’t looking. Amazing the kind of shit you can find on the Internet.” Tommy raised a skeptical eyebrow as the two crossed the threshold into the hallway and Adam smirked again. “Seriously. I just Googled ‘what to do when the people in charge start bickering like angry five-year-olds,’ and…” he gestured vaguely with one hand and Tommy glared playfully at him. Adam winked. “There were a surprisingly large number of results from Fortune 500 companies, actually, so at least you two are in good company.” Tommy snorted and laughed a little. As the two of them passed through the now empty Main Chamber, a thought seemed to occur to him, and Tommy became very serious again. He pulled away from Adam and stepped in front of him as they were about to exit into the corridor to the Med Bay, extending a hand to stop the other man from passing.

“Hold on a second.”

Adam glanced down at Tommy’s hand, then back up into his face. “Didn’t we do this already?”

“Think of it as payback,” Tommy retorted, lowering his arm. He paused a moment, examining Adam’s face, before going on. “You sure are handling this well. Know something I don’t?”

“You give me too much credit,” Adam muttered after a long pause. “I’m just really good at faking it.”

“Really.”

“Somebody has to be, the way you and Jason have been acting the last couple hours.”

Tommy chuckled humorlessly. “What’s your secret?”

Adam shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess I’m just good at not thinking about it. I try to avoid staring into the abyss; I get a little uncomfortable when it starts staring back.”

Tommy blinked a couple times and cocked his head at Adam in amused surprise. “You know, out of everyone in our fucked-up little group, you’re the only one I could never get a handle on. Less than five minutes ago you were joking about looking up weird shit on the Internet and now you’re quoting Nietzsche? Do the people on your home planet miss you or do you write back every few months?”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Private encrypted emails twice a week. Now are we gonna get you checked out for a concussion or should I just give you one right now?”

“God, everyone just wants to hit me today,” Tommy groaned, turning on his heel and pushing into the hallway. “Two years out of high school and I’m finally popular. Who’d’ve thought?”

“No idea.” Adam came up behind Tommy and grabbed his left arm in a vice grip, practically dragging him to the Med Bay doors. “Must be your brilliant personality.”

* * *

**Medical Bay  
** **5:00 PM PDT**

It was only as the Med Bay doors were sliding open in front of him that Jason vaguely realized he’d never come to a dead stop from a full on sprint this quickly before without running into something. He had slammed himself to a stop in the Med Bay entrance, his shoes leaving jagged skids along the shiny polished stone of the hallway floor, at the sight of Trini slowly rising to a sitting position on the farthest bed from the door. She looked dazed, disoriented, groggy; her hair fell in clumped knots over her filthy face and shoulders, the tattered shreds of her pale yellow blouse dangling from her frame like leaves about to fall from a tree. A thin sheen of sweat shone from every surface of exposed skin.

It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

He could barely breathe, his relief was so intense. Jason felt his heart leap into his throat, a surge of adrenaline pumping through him as the strength in his knees began to give out. He took a small step forward to keep his balance, the muscles in his feet roaring in protest as he shifted his weight around as best he could. Seeing Trini like that had brought so much rushing back to him, thrown into harsh reality the fear he had yet to face about the situation that awaited them. Now, after what had happened to Zack and what they’d been through in Geneva…just the very sight of those beautiful almond eyes opening again, of his girl actually sitting up of her own power, was enough to render him – for the first time in a very long time – completely dumbstruck.

Jason stood frozen in the doorway long enough for Billy and a gasping Kat to catch up to him, flanking him on each side as they approached the door.

“Jason?” Billy said, gently nudging Jason’s shoulder. Startled out of his reverie, the Red Ranger let out the breath he’d forgotten he was holding. “What…” Jason cut him off by reaching up and planting the palm of his left hand on Billy’s cheek, swiveling his friend’s head to view the scene in the room before them. “Oh.”

Jason watched, awestruck, as Kim helped Trini gingerly swing her legs over the edge of the bed and lower herself to the floor, fingers curled around the edge of the table for support. His mouth worked silently around words his brain couldn’t form yet, and Billy was about to give him a shove forward into the room when Trini wobbled ever so slightly on her feet. Billy’s arm shot out to push Jason into the Med Bay, but by the time it would’ve made contact, Jason was no longer there. He closed the distance between himself and Trini with inhuman speed and threw his arms around her, embracing her tightly enough to lift her off the ground. She lifted her pounding head to gaze into his eyes; Jason realized that she looked the same way she did when she first woke up in the morning, her face wearing a mask of serenity, a graceful inner peace and contentment that defied their circumstances and boiled his blood.

“Hey,” he whispered, a small smile beginning to form on his face.

“Good morning,” she whispered back, her own smile fading at the sight of Jason’s concerned face. Suddenly Trini’s eyes widened, a small gasp escaped her lips and her face drained rapidly of color as everything came flooding back at once. “Oh god, Jason!” She buried her face in his shoulder and clung to fistfuls of his shirt, her breath coming in ragged, exhausted wheezes that sent shudders through her body. Jason held her tightly against him, everyone else in the room quickly becoming invisible as he cooed softly in her ear, trying to calm her down. After a moment, Trini gently extracted herself from his grip and sat down on the edge of the bed, gripping the edges of the table until her knuckles started turning white. Suddenly Jason felt a tug on the back of his shirt and spun around to find Kim and Tanya frantically trying to get his attention. Glancing at Trini over his shoulder, Jason allowed Tanya to lead him over to where Kim stood next to the bed closest to the door, where Kat had sat down and was having the lacerations on her legs stitched up. The blonde Australian craned her neck to look up at them, the three girls eyeing Jason anxiously.

“Guys, what’s wrong?” Jason was rapidly becoming concerned, his friends’ expressions making him nervous. Kim glanced over his shoulder, past Rocky and Aisha at the middle bed, at Trini, who was talking softly to Billy, her eyes glistening with tears. Jason followed her gaze only to have Tanya yank his head back around. “Ow!” He hissed at her, massaging his neck. Tanya shrugged apologetically and turned to Kim, hands on her hips. Jason looked to Kim as well; he should’ve known she’d be behind this. “Why all the secrecy? You three act like you’re planning to blow up Parliament.”

“Jason,” Kim slugged him on the shoulder and glared at him. “This is serious.” Kim exchanged nervous glances with Kat and Tanya and sighed. “Trini doesn’t know.”

“Doesn’t know…oh fuck me,” Jason muttered as it dawned on him. “You didn’t tell her?”

“We thought you should do it,” Tanya said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “We thought it would be better if it came from you.” Jason had to fight back a sudden urge to break her wrist. He settled for glaring at her.

“Gee, thanks,” he grumbled. He looked back at Trini and Billy talking and a smug, bitter smirk crossed his face. “And what makes you think Billy isn’t telling her right now?”

Kim, Kat and Tanya whipped their heads around to observe Billy, who stood with an arm around Trini’s shoulders but his back to their group. Tears had begun to run down Trini’s face; he was certainly giving her some kind of bad news. Kat snorted. “Well. Shit. That could’ve been planned better.”

“No shit,” Kim muttered. She turned back to Jason. “Jase, please. As Trini’s friend, as _your_ friend, I am begging you to go over there and break this to her before Billy gets all clinical. Please.”

Jason sighed and dropped his head. “Fine.” As he turned back toward Trini, he felt Kim and Tanya pat him reassuringly on the back. Tanya leaned in close as he walked past.

“It’ll be OK,” she whispered. Jason smiled grimly and squeezed her shoulder as he went by.

_It’s nowhere near OK, Tan,_ Jason thought as he approached Trini. _OK isn’t even on the fucking map._

“Trini?” Jason spoke softly as he stepped into Trini and Billy’s conversation. Billy glanced up at Jason and immediately stepped back, slapping Jason on the shoulder as he did so. Jason held Trini’s questioning gaze for a long moment. “You OK?”

Trini wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, leaving streaks of moisture and grime across her face. She blinked a few times and took a deep breath. “I think so.” Her eyes wandered up and down Jason’s body, a hunger in them. “You clean up pretty good.”

He chuckled. “It’s just an extremely clever camouflage for my dirty mind.” Jason tapped a finger against the side of his head. “And for the record, you wear that dirt _very_ well.”

Trini raised an eyebrow. “Oh, joy. I’m the dirty girl you’ve always fantasized about.”

“Hey, my dreams are my own business.” The two of them laughed softly; Jason cupped Trini’s cheek in his hand and gently caressed her earlobe with the tip of his little finger. She placed her own hand over his and nestled against him, inhaling the smell of the soap he’d used to shower. Suddenly, her brow furrowed and she looked past him around the room.

“Speaking of dirty minds, where the hell is Zack? I’m gonna have to make you kick his ass later for not being here when I woke up.” Trini smiled a little and turned back to Jason…only to have the blood drain out of her face at the pained expression on his.

“Jason?” Trini’s voice was barely audible, a tiny, squeaking sound that carried an edge of mounting fear. Jason tore his eyes away from her and stared down at the floor. “Jase, what happened?”

“It’s Zack, Tri,” Jason croaked. “He, uh…he…aw, fuck.” Jason ran a hand over his face and leaned against the table so Trini wouldn’t see how weak his knees were becoming or the sickly white pallor that came over him. He pulled her in closer to him, so that their faces were almost touching. “When the dorm building came down we got separated, Zordon teleported us out before I could go back to find him, but…” Jason trailed off and Trini felt her heart beginning to pound in her chest, heard the blood begin to rush behind her eardrums. A cold sweat broke out on the back of her neck; suddenly her torn clothes felt far too tight, the entire room started to tilt to one side as though someone had messed with the gravity. Neither of them noticed the door slide open or heard Tommy and Adam enter, completing their grim reunion. Tommy made a move toward Trini only to have Billy and Kim practically tackle him to the floor to keep him from interrupting. Jason nuzzled his forehead against Trini’s shoulder and found some semblance of his voice again. “God, I did everything I could to get you guys out of there but you were hurt and my fucking shoulder was…and by the time they finally got us back here he…I don’t know, he must’ve been hit by something, that green energy must’ve gotten to him…there was nothing we could do.” Jason lifted his head and Trini finally saw the awful truth in his helpless expression.

“No,” she mouthed, gripping Jason’s face in both hands. “No, please god no,” she moaned weakly, pleading with him, her head shaking slowly back and forth. Jason sighed and held one of her wrists in his hand.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, every tear rolling down her face a punch in his gut. Trini lowered her head and started sobbing in earnest, rocking back and forth. Jason wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close, letting her bury her face in his chest as her hands clung to him like a life preserver.

Rocky squeezed his eyes shut on the adjacent bed and grasped Aisha’s hand; since he had to lie face down so the machine could work on his neck, he couldn’t see what Jason and Trini were doing, but he was also unable to tune out the sound of Trini’s crying, the muffled hiss of Jason desperately trying to whisper comforting words to her. Next to him, Kat sat up on her table and fought back tears in her own eyes; Billy put a hand on her shoulder and Kat laid her own on top of it, stroking it gently. Next to Billy, Kim, Tommy, Adam and Tanya, now with a fresh bandage around her arm, stood in a rough group near the door, lost in a despondent silence. For a very long time the only sounds were the buzzing of the fluorescent lights and the occasional muffled sob, the small family of Rangers taking a long moment to process the intense grief that had just begun to sink in.

Finally, Jason pushed back from the table, kissed Trini on top of the head, and walked slowly across the room to the small enclosure that still held Zack’s body. He lay one hand flat on top of the machine and was silent for a long moment. Eventually, Jason let out a long sigh and turned back to his assembled teammates, his hand still lingering on the console. When he spoke, his voice was soft, quiet, but it echoed through the Medical Bay as though he were shouting. “Look,” he began. “We’re all hurting right now. That much is obvious. What’s happening out there, what happened to us in here…” he turned back to stare at Zack’s body for a moment before continuing. “I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. But the important thing now is that we don’t let this break us.” Jason let his hand fall from the machine and stepped forward. "Billy told me those things out there knew _exactly_ where, when and how to hit us. They attacked our planet as though they’d been planning it for years, and more importantly, they knew where _we_ were.” He made a sweeping gesture around the room and began to pace back and forth.

“As bad as it may sound, we got lucky. That could’ve been any one of us in there,” Jason said, pointing at the machine. “It could’ve been all of us. But it wasn’t. Losing Zack is hard for all of us; he was a friend, a teammate, a brother, and it’s totally OK for us to be…shocked, and sad, and pissed, and that urge to tear one of those alien fuckers’ heads off is nothing to be embarrassed about. Believe me, as many times as Zordon has told us about the dangers of revenge, I would like nothing more than to kill a few of those assholes myself right now. But we can’t let that throw us off our game.” Jason scanned the room, making eye contact with everyone but Rocky, who still lay face down on the middle bed. “We’ve all seen firsthand what these things can do. I think it’s obvious that this goes far beyond anything Rita and Zedd have ever even tried to pull off. This isn’t some ill-conceived attempt to split us up or break down our self-confidence or teach us some bullshit lesson about life using bad puns and half-assed B-movie monster makeup. This is full out, no holds barred, winner take all. This is _war_ , boys and girls, and I can pretty much guarantee that it’s not gonna get any easier from here on out. I don’t like it any more than you do, but we can’t let ourselves flinch, especially not now, not when the planet needs us more than ever.” Jason’s voice had gradually intensified during the last few minutes, but he took a deep breath and spoke again, softly, like before.

“If we ever want to see our families again, if we ever want our world to be the beautiful place we know it can be, if we want humanity to survive…” Jason trailed off for a moment. After a very tense few seconds of quiet, he went on. “If we ever want to be able to live normal lives again, we have to beat these things. This is what we were chosen for, this is what we’ve trained for. This is what we were born for. If we don’t get these fuckers off our planet, nobody will.” Jason paused to let his words sink in. “Now I know Zordon’s not letting us leave right now…” Rocky grunted angrily at this, and several others fidgeted restlessly. “So we need to make the most of our time. Tommy, Rocky, Kat – get patched up. Billy, Trini – get some sleep, you two look about to collapse. The rest of you – get some rest, clean up a little, maybe get some training in. Kim, Trini, Sha and I still have to go get our power coins from Angel Grove and the minute we get the green light we’re bringing them back here. After that, this shit is on. We’re gonna show these bastards what they get when they attack our planet and hurt our friends.” Jason glanced one more time at Zack’s body. “We’re gonna take their little invasion and shove it right up their collective ass, and when we’re done with that…” he clenched his fists and took a long, slow breath. “We’re gonna kill every motherfucking last one of them.” Jason stopped and glanced around the room again; after a minute, he strode back over to Trini and gave her a powerful hug.

“That was great,” she whispered in his ear. “The Conference did wonders for your public speaking skills.”

He laughed softly. “I’m just glad it’s over so I can get back to punching things.” The two of them separated as the others began to file out.

“Your place or mine?” Trini asked softly. Jason didn’t answer immediately; instead, he turned to Tommy, who was lowering himself onto the bed where Jason had been.

“You and me,” he said pointing at his white-clad comrade. “Training room. One hour.”

Tommy raised an eyebrow but nodded before letting his head fall back to the bed’s surface. Jason turned and smiled at Trini. “I’ll meet you back at my place in five. There’s something I have to do.”

Trini nodded and headed for the door, but let it open and close while she still stood in the room. Turning, she watched as Jason patted the Intensive Care machine a few times before taking something out of his pocket and setting it on top of it. Then, he turned to the counter on the adjacent wall, tore a sheet off a pad of paper, and quickly wrote something on it before he laid that on the bed, too. Trini wanted to let him have his privacy, but her curiosity was irresistible. She crept up behind him and crossed her arms around his neck from behind. Peering over his shoulder, she could see that he’d placed three ten dollar bills on top of the machine, along with a note that read simply, “Thanks for helping me find my soft spot.” Trini kissed Jason gently on the cheek.

“He was lucky to have you as a friend. We all are.” She leaned her head into the crook of his jaw. “I love you.”

He reached up and gently cupped her cheek with his hand. “I love you back. Come on. I can’t be in here anymore.” Then, together, hands clasped, the two of them turned and walked silently out of the Med Bay, not daring to look back even after the door had slid shut behind them.

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Aisha Campbell’s Private Quarters  
** **5:35 PM PDT**

For the second time that day, Rocky found himself pacing in the hallway outside Aisha’s bedroom, staring at the closed door as if he expected it start talking. His footsteps echoed off the metallic floor, bouncing up and down the empty hallway as he fought the urge to run. After he was done in the Med Bay Rocky had split as fast as he could, not even looking at the small enclosed table as he fled to his room for a shower and a change of clothes. The official orders were to clean up, rest up and get a light workout in of some kind if possible; once the opportunity had arisen, Rocky had immediately begun ignoring those and made a beeline for Aisha’s room.

Now, ironically enough, as much as he’d hurried to get here, he couldn’t bring himself to just knock on the door.

_Oh, this is hilarious_ , he thought, passing the door again. _I’ve handled magical foot soldiers, monsters hundreds of feet tall, Dr. Edgerton’s chemistry tests…and here I am having a goddamn crisis of indecision over a fucking door._

As if beckoned, the door latch clicked. Rocky skidded to a halt and slid to one side, pressing his back against the wall and holding his breath. The door opened an inch or so but no more.

_Shit, she’s leaving_ , he thought, feeling his cheeks starting to tingle. _Guess it’s now or never._ Rocky shoved himself off the wall, gripped the edge of the door, and flung it open.

Kat was about as surprised to see him standing there as he was to see her. She let out a high-pitched yelp of shock, jumping back so hard that the towel she’d wrapped around herself slipped almost all the way off; Rocky caught a fleeting glimpse of her small, firm nipples before the slender girl snatched the towel out of midair and yanked it back up.

“Kat?” Rocky said stupidly, one hand still resting on the door as though it were the only thing keeping him from falling flat on his face. His mind had gone completely blank; his heart pumping so fast he could feel it against the inside of his ribcage. The only thing he could think of to say was, “Isn’t this Aisha’s room?”

Kat didn’t say a word, just groaned, rolled her eyes and stepped to one side, fixing Rocky with a glare as she gestured with her head into the room behind her. Rocky frowned and looked past Kat for the first time, feeling his cheeks grow hot.

Four pairs of eyes looked back at him from inside the room, every last one of them twinkling with amusement. Aisha and Billy sat next to each other on the edge of Aisha’s purple-sheeted bed, facing the door. He sat straight up, hands folded in his lap; her posture was more relaxed, her weight propped up on her elbows. Across the room, Adam sat sprawled out on the couch that normally faced the TV on the far wall but had been flipped around towards the bed. Tanya lay half on top of him, her right leg protruding from the sofa, foot planted on the floor. As the blood rushed into Rocky’s face, turning his cheeks an angry shade of crimson, all four of them smirked with barely-contained laughter. He folded his arms angrily.

“What the hell are you all doing in here?”

“Oh, you just missed it,” Aisha replied with feigned disappointment. “We were just about to start a game of bedroom musical chairs. I think Kat was gonna try to bribe Tommy out of his with a little surprise nudity.” The room exploded with laughter and the blonde Australian shoved Rocky aside with a muttered curse and stormed down the hall, the towel flapping behind her. Billy pushed himself off the bed and followed, still laughing softly as he called for her to wait.

Rocky finally stepped into the room and pulled the door closed behind him. “Do I even want to know?”

Adam chuckled again and shook his head. “Aisha’s just giving you shit, dude. Kat really was just in here to take a shower. This is about the only room left with any hot water.”

“Ah,” Rocky said, breaking into a small smile despite himself. “Jason’s been thinking hard lately.”

“You’d think he would learn how to do that in a way that doesn’t involve the rest of us freezing our asses off,” Tanya grumbled with mock exasperation.

“Pfft. Right. I got a hundred bucks for anyone who can tell me the last time that boy did anything the easy way,” Aisha said, glancing around the room. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”

“Come on, Sha, cut the guy a little slack,” Rocky said, moving to sit beside her on the bed. “With everything that’s just happened he literally has the weight of the entire world on his shoulders. Tommy too. They want to do a little deep thinking and save our asses I’m all for it.” _Especially now that Zordon’s apparently adopted an appeasement policy._

“You keep using that word,” Adam piped up. “I don’t think it means what you think it means.” He chuckled again and Tanya swatted him softly on the arm. “In all seriousness, though, Sha, I gotta agree, although personally I think I’m more than capable of saving my own ass."

“I know, I know,” Aisha said, lowering herself back onto the bed with a groan. “This whole thing just seems so hopeless, you know?”

“We’ve made it out of bad situations before,” Tanya offered. “In fact, I’d say we’ve kind of made a habit out of it.”

Aisha fixed her in a level gaze. “And what that we’ve ever done before even comes close to this? You heard what Jason said in there, Tan. We all did. This is a whole new level of fucked up that we don’t even know about. How many more of us are gonna end up like Zack before this thing plays out?”

“All of us if you keep thinking like that.” The four of them turned as the door swung open and Billy stepped in, a still-damp but now fully-clothed Kat following behind him.

“Just for the record,” she said sternly, pointing at everyone in the room in turn. “All of you suck. Billy, continue.”

Billy’s eyes swept the room. “I spoke to Jason an hour ago and he told me how much he needs all of us to be in this if we want to even stand a chance. How’s your neck, Rocky?”

“Better,” Rocky said, stepping toward him. One hand still absently rubbed the bandages that had been adhered to the back of his neck, but the pain had mostly subsided for now. Billy gently peeled one side of the bandage off and looked beneath it.

“Healing’s coming along very well,” he noted, pressing the adhesive back against Rocky’s skin. “Does it still hurt?”

“Not for the last half an hour,” Rocky replied. “Those machines in the Med Bay have never exactly skimped on the painkillers.”

“No shit,” Adam said. “We’d all be addicted to morphine by now if Jason didn’t get so loopy every time he got too much.”

“Speaking of Jason, where the hell did he go?” Kat spoke up. “I haven’t seen him or Trini since they left the Med Bay. Kim or Tommy either, now that I think about it.”

“Kat, honey,” Tanya said very slowly, as though speaking to a toddler or mental patient. “I want you to think very hard about what you just said and who we’re talking about here.”

Rocky chuckled. “Wow, somebody actually beat me to the dirty thoughts for once.” He paused. “On a totally unrelated note, did anyone else just go to a very interesting visual place?”

Aisha picked up a pillow off the bed and chucked it at him. “Have I said you were disgusting enough times today?”

“You know I think with all this chaos you may have been a little off your pace,” Rocky said with a grin. “Maybe if you get right up in my face and say it then it’ll start sinking in.”

Aisha snorted. “Last time I did that you tried to stick your tongue down my throat. Forgive me for having reservations.”

“You see now why I took the alcohol away from you before?” He winked.

She rolled her eyes. “Fuck off.”

“OK,” Adam cut in, holding up a hand. “I think this is the part where someone usually steps on the lit fuse before the dynamite collapses the mineshaft. Both of you, chill.”

Aisha and Rocky looked away from each other, Rocky leaning his shoulders back against the steel wall. The awkward silence that followed was broken by Kat clearing her throat.

“Hey Aisha, something Jason said before has been bugging me. What did he mean you guys had to go back and get your coins from Angel Grove? Aren’t your coins stored here somewhere?”

“I can answer that,” Billy piped up. “Back when Jason, Zack and Trini left for the Peace Conference, Zordon decided to let them keep their powers and make new ones for you three -” he glanced from Rocky to Aisha to Adam – “instead of taking them away. The reasons were obvious: their positions at the Conference wouldn’t be permanent so we figured they’d be back, and we were all so good at what we were doing by that point that nobody wanted to lose them forever; plus we wanted there to be a backup team somewhere in case we ever got in trouble and needed some outside help.”

“Like when Rock, Sha and I had to save all of your asses from Zedd’s brainwave thingy,” Adam said. Billy nodded; Tanya and Kat shot him quizzical looks. “Long story.”

“And I think we’d all agree that having a few reinforcements has paid off,” Billy added. “That incident with Xergon a few months ago would’ve ended _very_ badly if Jase and Trini hadn’t dropped by to lend an assist.”

“Tell me about it,” Kat said with a shudder. “Although that would only have ended about as badly as this has started.”

“Sha, I think your cynicism is catching,” Tanya grumbled.

Billy ignored her. “Anyway,” he continued, “after that whole shitstorm, Zordon decided to make that the official policy for whenever the lineup changed. I guess he figured the more Power Rangers there were in the world the better. The only problem was what to do with the power coins of the people who left.”

“Well, like I said before, why not just keep them here?” Kat asked, moving past Billy to take a seat on the arm of the couch. Tanya immediately lifted her feet and laid them in Kat’s lap. “Seems obvious that this is where they’d be most secure.”

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” Rocky muttered. “Not much of what Zordon’s doing is making sense lately.”

“OK, since there are witnesses around right now I’m gonna pretend you didn’t just say that but you and I are gonna have words later,” Billy said, shooting Rocky a glare. He ignored Rocky’s exaggerated eye roll and continued. “And for the record, _Kat_ ,” he said, pointedly looking past Rocky. “Zordon _did_ think of that. He decided that the time we would need a backup Ranger team the most would be in an emergency, like if…god forbid…the Command Center was ever compromised. If, in whatever nightmarish hellscape would produce those circumstances, the reserve power coins were stored here somewhere, there’d be nothing we could do to stop them from falling into enemy hands.”

“Nightmarish hellscape…” Adam muttered. “Checked the Viewing Globe lately?”

“Um, Billy?” Aisha had raised her hand as though seeking a professor’s attention. When the young genius’ eyes flicked her way, she lowered her arm. “When I decided to stay in Africa, couldn’t Zordon have just sent my coin with me? I’ve always kind of wondered why he didn’t.”

“Actually, Billy, I think I can get this one,” Adam said. Billy let his mouth slowly close. “If only so Rocky can have a chance to calm down. My guess would be that Zordon thought sending your power coins off with you into an environment with too many new variables would increase the risk of your identities being revealed to an unacceptable degree. I mean, come on, our coins get stolen like once a month anyway, and that’s just inside the city limits. Do you really think Zordon would be stupid enough to send them off into completely unfamiliar territory? The answer is no, by the way,” he added quickly before Rocky could blurt out the “Yes” that Adam could practically see preparing to leap from his mouth. One crisis averted, Adam glanced at Billy, who just nodded curtly.

“So,” Billy began again, “Zordon and I came up with the idea of having the people who left store their coins at their houses in Angel Grove. Yours,” he gestured to Aisha, “is at Kim’s place. He figured that would be somewhere that nobody would think of to look; at the very least, it would buy us time to figure out someone was after them and take steps.”

“OK, OK, I’m convinced,” Kat said.

“Good.” Billy crossed his arms and turned very conspicuously to Rocky. “Now I believe you and I need to talk.”

“What, suddenly I’m not allowed to disagree with Zordon on anything?” Rocky glared at Billy, gesturing emphatically toward the door.

“Well it certainly isn’t quality evidence of intelligence,” Billy shot back. “In case you haven’t noticed, Zordon A) has been around for a few millennia longer than us; B) is an intergalactic _wizard_ and still the only entity we know of that Lord Zedd was ever afraid of; and C) is the reason any of us are Power Rangers to begin with. The guy seems to know what the hell he’s doing, although in your case he may have been intoxicated when he did it.”

“And in case _you_ haven’t noticed, Zordon pretty much told the entire fucking world that it could go to hell so that we, the only people who stand even the slightest chance of making things right, could get a few boo-boos patched up. And then, even when more than half of us were ready to go, he decided it was smarter to keep us locked up in here against our will. So in the last few years he’s gone from simple violation of child labor laws to kidnapping, reckless endangerment, and oh yeah, don’t forget _allowing genocide_.”

“Rocky!” Kat cut in before Billy could retort. “You don’t honestly believe that any of us would’ve been able to do any good in the condition we were in, do you?” At Rocky’s incredulous look, she scoffed in surprise and raised her eyebrows. “ _Seriously?_ Come on. We were all reeling from Zack’s death; most of us were still injured to within inches of our own. How many of us do you think would’ve even survived morphing at that point?”

“None,” Billy muttered. Rocky glared at him again.

“Besides,” Kat continued. “The moment we were all here the attacks subsided almost completely. If anything, we were obligated to pull out – if these things have some way of tracking us or know something about who we are, the best thing to do right now is to hide any traces of our energy signature. What you call allowing genocide I call buying humanity a little valuable time.”

“Time for what?” Aisha asked, standing and moving to stand beside Rocky. “To die a little more slowly? To be afraid for a few more minutes before they all wind up looking just like Zack?” Aisha jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Jason talked a big game in there before but that’s all it is – talk – until we actually do something about it. And right now all Zordon is doing is keeping us from doing something. Now don’t get me wrong,” she added as Adam sat up from the couch to interject. “I don’t blame Jason or Tommy for this. They’re leaders – they’re too busy dealing with the world as it is to think about how it should be. But you can’t jump down Rocky’s throat because he’s the only one here who isn’t deluded by some kind of fanatical Zordon hero worship. He’s doing what all of us should be doing right now – questioning everything, because people like Tommy and Jason don’t have the time or the luxury of being able to do it. We owe it to _them_ to point out when someone’s fucked up. Even if that someone is Zordon.”

Billy stared, shocked, into Aisha’s face for a long moment before he turned on his heel and stormed out of the room; Kat, Adam and Tanya followed, letting the door swing shut behind them.

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Jason Scott’s Private Quarters  
** **5:45 PM PDT**

“I bet they think we’re having sex in here.” Trini glanced sidelong at Jason and tossed him a wry half-smile. Jason grinned but didn’t turn to face her; his eyes darted back and forth across the screen before them, his thumbs flying over the face of the controller in his hands.

“Only in the sense that we are absolutely skull-fucking this game to death,” he said with a laugh, his eyes twinkling as he turned and made eye contact with her. “You feeling any better?”

“Much,” Trini replied, executing a complicated sequence on a controller of her own. The game finally ended and she held the object out in front of her. “You know I never had any skill or interest in these things until we started driving Zords all the time.” She shrugged, tossed the controller onto Jason’s bed, and looked up at him again.

“Yeah, funny how things like that happen,” he said absently, switching the console off and unplugging it from the TV. “Hope Tommy doesn’t mind us borrowing his Xbox. He’s pissed enough at me as it is.”

“I think you’re blowing that out of proportion,” Trini said. “Yeah, you two had words in the Med Bay, but you were both really worked up by everything that was going on and you were still partially out of your mind on painkillers. Besides, neither of you has ever been the best with impulse control.”

“Come on, Tri,” Jason argued, plopping down next to her on the bed. Her hand found itself resting on his knee almost automatically. “I slammed him into the wall; I choked him until he almost passed out. Tommy’s talent for holding grudges is legendary – I still don’t think he’s ever forgiven me for that time I accidentally kicked his front tooth out.”

“I _knew_ that tooth was fake,” Trini muttered.

“Huh?”

“Nothing. But Jason, you and Tommy are so close there are times when it seems like you’re the same person. If you two can’t find a way to make things right then humanity really is screwed. Besides, did you see the look he gave you when we left? He’s probably spent the last hour thinking about how to bury the hatchet.”

Jason was quiet for a long moment. He’d had several of the same thoughts over the course of the last hour; it felt good to hear them echoed. He knew Tommy would want to take some time to work off some stress before they confronted each other again; that was the whole reason he’d left the training room free. Better his white-clad friend take out his pent-up aggression on an innocent bag of sand than Jason’s own torso, especially with the prospect of what they were about to do still hanging over their heads.

He turned back to Trini. “What about Kim? Where did she go after we left?”

Trini frowned. “Good question. I just sort of assumed she’d gone with Tommy but now that you mention it I think he would’ve wanted to be alone.”

He nodded. “You’re right. And if Kim wasn’t with Tommy, there are only a couple of places I can think of where she might have gone.” He stood up and stretched, rolling his shoulders and popping his neck, grunting with satisfaction. “I gave Tommy an hour,” he continued as he pulled his shoes back on. “Which means we have fifteen minutes to track Kim down and check on her. Care to join me?”

She rose and grabbed her own shoes. “What about everyone else?”

He smiled. “Easy. I took a long shower a little over an hour ago, and I think the order I gave in the Med Bay was to clean up, get some rest, and train a little, which means they probably did the first two and came down with a case of rapid-onset Fuck-It Syndrome. The only part of the whole compound that’ll still have hot water for the next hour and a half is Aisha’s room.” He shrugged. “Fifty bucks says they’re all in there. Except possibly Kim. Wanna shake on it?” He extended a hand.

She glanced bemusedly at his outstretched hand and then back up at his face. “You think I’m stupid? As you’re so fond of constantly reminding everyone who’ll listen, nobody knows this team like you do. Though apparently not well enough to know I don’t take bets I don’t think I can win.”

Jason let his hand fall back to his side and chuckled. “Meh. First time for everything. Now, you coming or what?” She nodded and the two of them headed for the door. As he reached for the latch he felt her hand on his shoulder.

“Jase.” She spoke very softly, her voice nearly a whisper and suddenly quavering. “Thanks for this. I needed something to take my mind off of things even for a minute before I…”

“Hey,” he cut in gently, laying his hand on the small of her back. She flinched a little and he pulled back slightly, but only slightly. After a moment, he returned his hand to her back, the soft fabric of her shirt too thin to block the warmth that seemed to emanate from his flesh. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad I could do something to help make you feel better…god, Tri, when I woke up and I saw you on that bed…you were lying so still, I didn’t…” he sighed. “Anyway, translated into coherent English that means I really want you to be OK. You mean a lot to me.”

She smiled softly, leaned forward and kissed him gently on the lips. “Thank you. So do you.” He pressed his forehead lightly against hers and reached his other hand up to cup the back of her neck.

“We’re gonna get through this, Tri,” he whispered firmly. She felt his breath on her cheeks. “We’re all too damn good at what we do for these things to come into our backyard and beat us on our own turf. Not gonna happen.”

Trini nodded and took a moment to breathe in the smell of him, a mixture of aftershave and light cologne with a faint hint of leather. She closed her eyes and brought her hands up to rest on his chest. He moved his to her shoulders and pulled her in close. They stood there like that for a long moment, just taking in each other’s presence, until he said, “You know, it’s gonna be really awkward if someone tries to get in here and hits us with the door.”

She chuckled and stepped back, pulling the door open and moving out into the hallway. He followed, shutting the door behind him.

“Come on,” he said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “Kim told me she was really upset when she came back, so I was gonna check the Main Chamber first.”

Trini nodded and grinned at him. “You know I love you, right?”

He beamed back. “I like to think I do.” The two of them strode confidently down the hallway, feeling for the first time like they could handle this.

The feeling didn’t last long.

A door suddenly swung open down the hall and Billy, Kat, Adam and Tanya came tumbling out of Aisha’s bedroom, angry looks on several of their faces. Jason and Trini’s smiles faded quickly as they approached the group; Billy strode angrily a few paces down the hallway and put a hand up against the wall. As Trini moved toward the others, who were milling about rather awkwardly in front of Aisha’s door, Jason’s gaze was fixed on Billy. The Blue Ranger lifted his glasses onto his forehead and rubbed his eyes with his free hand. He was breathing so hard he was practically growling. Jason frowned and stepped gently toward him, hands in his pockets in a forced show of nonchalance.

“You OK, man?” Billy glanced up with a glare. Jason arched his eyebrows expectantly.

Billy’s glare softened; his eyes closed and he let out a long, frustrated sigh. “Yeah. Sorry. Rocky’s just being an asshole in there. Sometimes he can be nearly as pigheaded as you are.”

Jason chuckled. “What happened?”

Billy opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of it and closed it again. “You know what, it was nothing,” he said, holding up a hand palm out. “Besides, you have way more than enough on your plate right now; you don’t need this, too.”

“Neither do you,” Kat piped up. “Billy, Rocky was questioning everything Zordon’s ever done for us, every decision he ever made…hell, he was this close to actually _blaming_ him for what’s happening out there right now. You have every right to be upset.”

“He did _what_?” Trini demanded incredulously. Her eyes went wide.

Kat nodded. “Oh, yeah. Rocky’s been throwing a tantrum ever since he tried to teleport out and couldn’t. He says Zordon is keeping us locked in here for no reason and that by not letting us out he’s just making things worse.”

Trini shook her head. “That is such bullshit!” She paused long enough to glance briefly at the closed door. “Don’t tell me you left him and Aisha alone in there.”

“That’s exactly what we did,” Adam said, sliding down to sit on the floor, arms on his knees. Trini glared at him and he held out a hand defensively. “Look, if anyone can smack some sense into Rocky, it’s Aisha. Trust me.”

Tanya snorted. “I don’t know what conversation you were listening to, Adam,” she said, planting a hand on her hip. “But it sure sounded like Aisha was agreeing with him.”

Adam smirked. “Oh, that’s right. You’re new.”

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Aisha Campbell’s Private Quarters  
** **5:45 PM PDT**

Rocky and Aisha didn’t say a word to each other for a long moment. Finally Rocky turned and made eye contact with her.

“Thanks for agreeing with me,” he said softly.

She glared at him and flopped back onto the bed. “I don’t.”

“What? Then what the fuck was all that about?”

She rolled her eyes. “I just wanted to get them all to leave so I could tell you how fucking stupid you’re being to your face. And without the audience.”

Rocky closed his eyes and let a long breath out through his nose. He leaned back against the wall and slid down to the floor, holding his face in his hands. “Shit,” he said softly. “Maybe I am being stupid. I don’t know, Sha, I just…god, I don’t fucking _know_ anymore. Zack is dead and Zordon’s acting crazy and everything’s gone to hell and my entire family could be dead right now and now, to top it all off, two of my best friends probably hate me…god _damn it!_ ”

Aisha sighed and sat up, her face quickly softening. “They don’t hate you, Rocko. They’re just angry and scared and grieving and a little irrational. We all are right now.” _Which is exactly why Zordon kept us in here, you idiot_ , she thought, but bit the words back. She slid down next to him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. He looked up at her touch and let a small smile creep across his face.

“Thanks,” he whispered. She smiled back and nodded. “So,” he said, letting his head fall back against the wall, eyes staring up into the ceiling. “You think Jason and Trini really are having sex right now?”

She smacked him again; this time, however, she couldn’t help but laugh a little herself.

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Living Quarters – Main Corridor  
** **5:50 PM PDT**

“You know this from experience?” Tanya raised a skeptical eyebrow at Adam. “How many times have Rocky and Aisha gone at it like that, anyway?”

Adam licked his lips and stared off down the hall. “Quite frankly? They’re long overdue. They usually maintained a pattern of build and release but they haven’t really exploded at each other for months now. The two of them are the fucking Yellowstone caldera of unresolved sexual tension.”

“OK, great,” Kat said with forced cheerfulness. “So they waited to erupt until we were right in the middle of a goddamn global apocalypse. I must say I applaud their planning.”

Adam laughed bitterly. “You call this an eruption? Oh boy, you’re in for a real fun time. Tell you what, next time you have a free minute with Kim ask her what happened on the way home from senior prom.”

“Senior prom?” Billy’s brow furrowed in confusion.

Adam shrugged. “Somehow word got around to Aisha that Rocky had spent a few very passionate moments in the girls’ bathroom with some other girl. Feelings were hurt, there was screaming, clawing, emotional manipulation, the occasional threat of violence, both lethal and otherwise, cans of worms were opened and their contents flung about, accusations were made, the Earth shook, birds took flight for safer climes, law enforcement authorities were called and subsequently evaded, it was a whole thing. You know how it is.”

Jason glanced from Adam to the door and back. “So why didn’t any of us hear about this?”

“As a personal favor to Rocky and Aisha, respectively, Kim and I were sworn to silence. We were the only witnesses – Tommy had to be up early the next morning for a tournament and Billy spent the night in the Lab curing cancer or something.” Adam ran a hand through his hair. “That whole arrangement seems to have worked out well.”

Jason folded his arms and dropped his chin to his chest. “So I’m guessing among everything else we can expect these two to blow up at each other at the most inopportune time possible.”

Adam said nothing; he just pointed a finger at Jason and let his hand drop to his knee.

“Spec-fucking-tacular,” Jason muttered. He pushed himself off the wall and moved toward Trini. “Well as amusing and…revealing…as this whole little meeting has been, Trini and I were on our way to go find Kim.”

“I think you should let me handle that one, Rex,” Trini said, clapping him on the shoulder. “You’ve got maybe five minutes to meet Tommy in the gym. You go do that, I’ll track down Kim.”

Jason sighed. “Shit. OK, fine. Think of something masculine yet fractionally sensitive and tell her I said it. I gotta go.” He turned and walked quietly down the corridor, hanging a left at the T-junction and disappearing around the corner.

Tanya glanced up at Trini, then down to Adam. “Earth shook? Authorities called? I don’t know about the rest of you, but I could really use a good story right about now.”

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Main Chamber  
** **5:58 PM PDT**

The Main Chamber was quiet when Trini, Billy, Tanya, Adam and Kat walked in and let the door slide shut behind them. The lights had gone out from too little movement; in the instant before the harsh fluorescent bulbs kicked back on the only illumination came from the twinkling control consoles and the soft blue glow from Zordon’s tube. Alpha still darted silently back and forth, working controls at one console after another while periodically grabbing and scanning the ever-lengthening printout from the galactic radar. Zordon himself had reappeared in his tube but seemed lost in thought, gazing into the floor and mouthing what looked like a language that none of them could identify.

Kim sat against the back of one of the counters, staring up at the blank Viewing Globe, hugging her knees to her chest. Her cheeks were still streaked with grime, her hair falling over her shoulders in clumps. Her clothes were tattered and dirty; it was obvious to all of them that she still hadn’t gone to clean up. She didn’t look up at them or react in any way to the sound of their entrance; the five of them exchanged a worried look.

“Kim?” Trini called out softly. Receiving no response, she edged forward and moved carefully toward where Kim sat. Kat followed, straining her muscles to stay quiet, approaching Kim almost like she was a caged animal. Trini reached her first and knelt beside her, laying a tentative hand on her shoulder as if afraid of being bitten.

“Kim, honey?” Trini’s voice was so soft it was almost a whisper. Kat made her way around to Kim’s other side and crouched before her, making anxious eye contact with Trini. Kim jerked at the sound of Trini’s voice, as though she’d shouted at her. She looked around wildly for a moment like she didn’t know where she was, her breath coming in erratic wheezes that made it sound like she was choking. The episode only lasted a moment – Kim quickly coughed a few times and calmed down – but it was long enough for Kat and Trini to wordlessly confirm with each other that their friend was not in a great place right now.

Catching her breath, Kim cracked a small, breathless smile and looked up at Trini. “Hey, Tri,” she said softly, trying to hide the quiver that threatened to show itself in her voice.

“You OK?” Trini asked, lowering herself to a seated position. “You didn’t look so good just now.”

Kim scoffed and leveraged her palms on the floor. “Come on, Tri, I’m fine,” she said, much more firmly now, as she pushed herself up to her feet and spread her arms as if the simple act of standing proved her point. When Trini and Kat rose to eye level with her and peered skeptically at her, she let her arms flop to her sides and sighed. “It took a while for the adrenalin to wear off and everything hit me a little harder than I was expecting, but I’m fine. Really.”

“You don’t look it,” Kat remarked, and for the first time, Kim frowned and looked down at herself.

Her eyes widened a little; she smiled sheepishly and whistled. “Damn, you’re not kidding. OK, I’m gonna go wash this shit off and put on some clean clothes. I’ll meet you guys back here in ten.”

“No rush,” Tanya said. “Jason and Tommy still have their…issues to work out, and we left Rocky and Aisha poised on the brink of explosion. Speaking of which, sometime before we all forget you need to tell us what happened with the two of them at senior prom.” Kim shot Adam a death glare and he laughed nervously.

“Aw, come on, Kim, how long did you really think you could go without needing to tell someone?”

Kim shrugged and turned to leave. “Oh, wait,” Trini said suddenly. Kim stopped and regarded her friend, confused. “The whole shower thing may pose a bit of a problem.” Kim frowned and Trini smirked. “Let’s just say this whole situation…really got Jason _thinking_.”

Kim rolled her eyes. “God damn it,” she grumbled. “One day I am going to sit that boy down and have a very stern talk with him about water conservation.” She sighed. “The water heater’s in his room, right?”

Trini giggled. “Sorry, I think he locked his door when we – er, when _he_ left a few minutes ago.” Her face flushed the faintest shade of pink but Kat and Kim’s faces lit up with grins. Trini rolled her eyes and suddenly became very serious. “Wait. Oh dear god. You know what that means, don’t you?”

Kim shrugged. “Sure. I’ll just go wait in the hallway until Hurricane Aisha blows over and use her shower.”

With that, Kim turned on her heel and strode out of the Main Chamber. The others watched her go, then turned to look at one another.

“Think she’ll be all right?” Adam asked.

“Hard to say,” Billy said, his eyes still fixed on the empty doorway. “She said she left two people behind and she blames Tommy for not saving them. Things like that are difficult to let go of.”

Trini sighed, folding her arms over her chest. Billy was right. Kim was still in a very fragile emotional state, despite what she said or how she acted. If she and Tommy didn’t get past this problem soon, there was trouble brewing.

“Great,” she muttered under her breath. “Fucking apocalypse happens and we choose now to start falling apart at the seams.”

* * *

**Command Center**  
**Training Room  
** **6:00 PM PDT**

Tommy wasn’t used to it being so damn quiet in here.

Normally, the training room was an almost constant source of raucous activity, the loud workout music or the exuberant shouts of exhilarated sparring partners echoing down the hallway and providing background noise for innumerable strategy sessions or bouts of insomnia. It seemed one could never walk into the training room and not find somebody else already here, putting some kind of workout or practice routine together; hell, usually the only way you could get this place to yourself was to wait out whoever else was in here and get them to leave before you did. Now, though, the place was a goddamn ghost town. The spot where Tommy now lay on the floor, hands laced behind his head, staring into the harsh fluorescent lights, was the very place where he and Jason had taught Billy his first kata, where Kim had perfected the floor routine that had gotten her onto the national team, where Kat had first demonstrated her scholarship-winning ballet performance.

Now, any trace of that activity seemed to have been erased from existence. The massive stereo system sat silent in the corner, the weights lay ignored and forgotten on their racks, and for the first time Tommy could remember, the punching bag wasn’t still swinging from the last pounding it had taken.

Groaning, the White Ranger unfolded his hands from behind his head and dug his knuckles into his eyes. The mat he lay on was dark, deep red, the color of blood; he felt the fabric sticking to the sweat on the back of his neck. Tommy planted his palms against the floor and slowly rolled over, feeling his skin peel free of the mat, and leveraged himself up to his knees. He rested his hands on his thighs and took several slow, deep breaths, trying to quell the raging tempest of thoughts and emotions that whirled around inside his head.

The sound of the door swinging open behind him startled him badly enough that he was on his feet with his fists extended before he even registered that anything had happened. Jason took a cautious step back and held out a hand, the fingers of the other still curled around the edge of the door.

“Hey,” he said softly, crossing the threshold in slow, smooth movements and letting the door gently swing shut. Tommy had to force himself to relax, uncurling his fists and letting out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Jason didn’t move from his place in the doorway. “Can I come in or are you gonna go all _Game of Death_ on me?”

Tommy let out what felt like a chuckle but was really just a harsh exhale through his nose. “Yeah, sure.” He gestured to a weight bench with his head and lowered himself back to a seated position on the mat.

The tiniest hint of a smile flitted across Jason’s face. “Thanks.” He crossed the room carefully – still giving Tommy a wide berth as though he were radioactive – and sat down on the edge of the bench. The Red Ranger rested his elbows on his knees, wrapped his left hand around his right fist, and propped his chin on his hands. “You OK?”

Tommy ran a hand over his face and snorted. “If by _OK_ you mean ‘teetering on the edge of a self-destructive rage spiral so deep that by the time I reach the bottom I’ll only be able to communicate in quotes from nihilistic philosophers and Hawthorne Heights lyrics,’ then yeah, I’m fucking perfect. You?”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “Please tell me you planned that.”

“My bathroom mirror has been the recipient of some very compelling preemptive hate rants lately, yes,” Tommy said with a small smile.

Jason nodded, grunting sympathetically. “Been there. Really, though, how are you holding up?”

Tommy didn’t answer right away. “You still hate me?”

Jason shrugged. “You still an unhinged asshole on a messianic power trip?”

“What?”

“Sorry, college does things to people. Basically translates to ‘are you still a massive prick?’”

“Well,” Tommy seemed to consider the question for a moment. Suddenly his eyes widened. “Oh, I’m sorry, you said ‘are.’ I thought you said ‘ _have_ ,’ in which case I would’ve been obligated to say yes.”

“So I come to extend an olive branch and you make dick jokes. I wanna hear someone lie shamelessly about the size of his cock I’ll go watch Rocky play _Madden_.” Jason’s tone was deadly, but the gleam in his eye betrayed his amusement.

“OK, OK, fine,” Tommy said, holding up a hand. “No, I’m not a massive prick anymore. In fact I feel really bad about the whole thing. I have since the moment it happened, actually.”

Jason’s expression softened. “It’s OK, bro, really. I was angry and freaked and still a little high on the drugs and I took all of that out on you. How’s the, uh…” He gestured to his neck. Tommy tilted his head back so Jason could see the bruise on his throat. Jason winced at the sight. “Holy shit, bro. I’m so sorry.”

Tommy waved him off. “I probably gave you way worse back when I was still, uh…”

“A massive prick?”

Tommy smirked. “In the sense that that’s the understatement of the millennium, yes. Consider us even.”

Jason sighed and dropped his gaze to the floor. “You know I don’t blame you for any of that stuff.”

“As you insist on constantly reminding me,” Tommy replied. He decided to change the subject. “So. How we doing?”

Jason held a hand out palm down and wiggled it up and down.

“That bad, huh?”

Jason chuckled. “So far everyone seems to be holding it together. Zordon said the attacks all tapered off significantly as soon as we were all hidden here, but the bad news is that he’s shut teleportation down and not everyone is satisfied with that.” At Tommy’s inquisitive look, Jason nodded. “Rocky for sure, and possibly Aisha, depending on whether her support of him was genuine or not.” Tommy opened his mouth to ask a question but Jason cut him off. “Long story, lots of gory details, I wasn’t there to see it. Don’t ask. Anyway, I don’t really know how Kim feels about it, haven’t really talked to her since the Med Bay…” Jason’s voice trailed off as Tommy’s face drained of color. “What?”

Tommy didn’t answer right away. “Kim. She still pissed at me?”

Jason sighed. “I don’t know, man. But if I know you two, and I think I do, she’ll come around sooner or later. If you guys can’t make things right then the world really is screwed.”

Tommy let out a small chuckle. “I hope you’re right, man. I can’t stand the thought of her hating me.” He turned and gazed past Jason into space. “You should’ve seen the way she looked at me when she got here, Jase. It was like…like she didn’t even know me anymore, like she was looking at an entirely different person. For a second there, I felt like I was…” his voice trailed off and he took a deep, shuddering breath. “I felt like I was evil all over again, and I was looking at her through the Green Ranger’s visor and I could see in her eyes all of the disgust and hatred and contempt she felt for me glowing like her eyes were on fire. God, I thought I had forgotten the way I’d looked at you guys back then, but right there in that moment, I was back there again, I was…” he glanced up at Jason, and the red-clad young man could see the terror in his friend’s eyes. “I was the bad guy again.”

“Tom, I want you to listen, and listen good.” Jason sat down beside Tommy and clapped him on the shoulder. “And I’m only gonna say this once because frankly it got old a long time ago. You are _not_ that person anymore. The guy that I know would never hurt anyone. Ever. You’re a good man, Tommy, and Kim is crazy about you. Shit, that one time after you lost the green powers you were gone like two weeks and she actually got physically sick. You’re gonna be OK, all right? Just give her some space for a while.” Tommy nodded and Jason hopped back up onto the weight bench.

“Anyway, we still need to get Trini, Aisha, Kim and my coins from AG,” Jason began again. “Hopefully when we get back Zordon’ll finally decide to let us leave.”

“And what happens when we do?” Tommy asked. Jason blinked a few times and frowned.

“What do you mean?”

Tommy shifted his weight and turned to make eye contact with his friend. “You said the attacks mellowed out once we got the hell out of Dodge. What if as soon as we show ourselves again they pick up on it and come charging in again?”

Jason thought for a moment. “I don’t see any other choice. We’ll just have to be fast. Maybe if we get in quickly enough and then make like Earnhardt back here they won’t even notice we were there.”

“Hate to play Devil’s Advocate here, bro, but they found us out of the entire population of Earth within a few minutes. Their sensors seem to be fairly well tuned.”

“Yeah, but we don’t know how long they waited nearby before attacking,” Jason pointed out. “Besides, I’m betting the reason they stopped this time is because they think we’re dead. If we disappear again, maybe they’ll just think they got us again and we can go all _You Only Live Twice_ on their asses.”

“You can spit out all the Bond references you want, Jase, they won’t make you right,” Tommy shot back with a laugh. “But I see your point. Ten Rangers are always better than six.”

“All right, then,” Jason said. “Now that that’s out of the way, we should figure out how to split up. I don’t want anybody going out there alone.”

“Strong in the Force, you are,” Tommy muttered, furrowing his brow thoughtfully. “Well, for starters, Kim and Aisha’s are in the same place, so they can go together. Kim probably needs someone who isn’t me to vent to right now, anyway.”

Jason nodded. “Yeah. We should send Rocky along, too, just so they have someone with them who isn’t morphing impaired.”

“Good idea.” Tommy leaned back and propped himself up on his elbows. “Trini can go with Adam, I’ll go with you… but where does that leave the others?”

“Well Kat and Tanya looked like they had something they needed to talk about,” Jason said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ll suggest they just stay here and keep an eye on things. If they say no we’ll send Tanya with Adam and Kat can come with us.”

“What about Billy?”

Jason blew out a breath and ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, about that,” he said slowly. “Billy’s… gonna be doing an autopsy on Zach.”

Tommy’s mouth dropped open but Jason held up a finger. “Now before you say anything, just hear me out here. You saw what he looked like in there; you saw what those things did to him. Billy thinks that if he examines him more closely he can get us some information about their weapons, how they work, how they’re used, and maybe even figure out a way to protect us from them. We need that kind of intel, especially now, when we know so little.”

Tommy rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “Wow.”

“Something wrong?”

“No, I just…” Tommy trailed off and licked his lips. “Rationally, strategically, it makes perfect sense. We’re in a horrible position right now, we need all the help we can get, and Zach isn’t there anymore, all that’s left on that bed is just meat, and I know all that, but –“

“But if we agree to this it means he’s really gone,” Jason finished softly.

“Yeah,” Tommy said after a minute. He scrunched his mouth up to one side. “You told the others?”

“Not me personally, no. I thought Billy said he was going to but I don’t know if he’s gotten around to it yet.” Jason put his hands on his knees and leveraged himself onto his feet. “Though I don’t blame you if you’re not up to dropping that particular bombshell right now. I’m willing to take the heat for that one as long as I know you have my back.”

Tommy rose to his feet as well. “Always, bro.” He held out a hand, Jason slapped it with his own, and for the first time that long day, the two young men smiled at each other.

“Come on,” Jason said, gesturing to the door. “We have a world to save.”

“Avengers, assemble,” Tommy muttered as they turned to leave, the door swinging shut behind them and the lights flickering out, leaving the gym dark and quiet once more.


	7. Homecoming

**“The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.”** **  
-** **George S. Patton**

**Command Center  
** **Main Chamber  
** **Somewhere Outside Angel Grove, CA  
** **August 28, 2012  
** **6:30 PM PDT**

Tommy and Jason reentered the Main Chamber to a dull murmur of scattered conversation that permeated every corner of the vast room. The two of them paused in the doorway for a moment and took a quick inventory of everyone present. Billy and Kim sat against a row of control consoles along the back wall, near Zordon’s tube, holding what looked like a framed photograph; occasionally one of them would point at something and smile. Aisha sat on the floor at the base of the Viewing Globe, arms around her knees, looking up at Tanya, who stood leaning against the Globe itself, arms crossed nervously across her chest. The two of them radiated anxiety; as Tommy watched, Aisha rocked back and forth on the floor, gently bouncing her weight off the balls of her feet. Tanya was drumming the fingers of both hands on the exposed skin of her arms with no discernible rhythm whatsoever as the two women presumably lobbed anxious small-time banter between them.

The most noise, however, came from the far corner of the room near the double doors that led to the Zord Hangar, where Adam, Rocky, Kat and Trini stood clustered tightly together, engaged in a hushed yet animated argument. The two men in the doorway couldn’t pick up any actual words, but the insistent hiss of emphatic consonants and the angry slashing and pointing gestures told them all they needed to know. Jason turned to Tommy and raised an eyebrow. Tommy shrugged and tossed his friend a wry half-smile. “Don’t worry about it, bro. They’re probably just letting off a little steam. We’re all a little on edge right now – when was the last time you heard from _your_ family?”

Jason sighed and nodded. “Yeah,” he said under his breath. He licked his lips, stuck his hands in his pockets, and whistled loudly through his front teeth. “Yo!”

The room went silent. Eight pairs of eyes swung to face them, some with arms still hanging frozen in their last gesture. Jason said nothing else, simply jerked his head to the right; the others responded immediately. Tommy and Jason moved into the room, letting the door slide shut behind them as they took up positions in front of Zordon’s tube, which still stood empty. Jason kept his hands in his pockets and leaned his butt against the base of the tube. As the others gathered around them Tommy shot Jason a questioning glance over his shoulder. The Red Ranger cocked his head incredulously to one side. “I already gave my big speech today. The hell are you lookin’ at me for?”

Tommy smiled and shook his head before turning back to look out at the others. “OK, guys, here’s the deal.”

Zordon chose that moment to reappear. His visage shimmered into existence in midsentence, so suddenly Tommy pulled a midair 180 and reflexively curled a fist. Jason just calmly leaned his head back against the tube and stared straight up at their mentor, though Tommy couldn’t imagine his view being all that impressive.

“-angers,” Zordon was saying as he appeared. “I have been attempting to gather as much information as I can on these mysterious invaders.”

Rocky opened his mouth as if to interrupt and Adam all but stomped on his foot to stop him. The two of them exchanged deadly glares; Rocky took a single, menacing step toward the other young man but Adam held his ground, jabbing a single extended finger into Rocky’s sternum. Tommy watched the silent interaction and sighed to himself. He turned and tried to exchange annoyed glances with Kim, but the slim brunette refused to meet his eye. He felt a knot of frustration begin to form in his stomach as he watched her gaze fall everywhere in the room except on him. Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. He knew Zordon was still talking, but Tommy grunted, ran a hand through his hair and interrupted him for the first time in his life.

“Zordon,” he said sharply, a little louder than he’d meant. Jason frowned at him from the base of the tube. Tommy had heard stories of a couple of times Jason had dared speak over Zordon before Tommy had moved to town, and in most of them the resulting glares alone would’ve driven lesser men insane. It wasn’t that the Rangers were afraid of Zordon, or that he’d ever given any indication that he didn’t want them to think for themselves, but during times like this, Zordon preferred to run things in a disciplined, militaristic style, and he was in charge. Period. Plus, nobody there had ever actually seen him really get angry, and as much as they all loved the guy, none of them could deny the thought of it made them nervous.

Now, the great mage’s face turned and regarded him; perhaps it was his imagination running away with him, but Tommy thought he read an undeniable hint of contempt in those features.

Wondering vaguely if this was what an ant under a magnifying glass felt like, Tommy gulped and steeled himself before plowing ahead. “Listen, I realize how important this is, but don’t we have something a little more urgent to take care of before we worry about that?” The White Ranger jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “There are four Power Coins back in Angel Grove that we still need to go after.”

“Not to mention we all have families we need to check up on,” Jason said, stepping away from the tube and standing to Tommy’s left. He crossed his arms defiantly over his chest.

The others gaped at the two of them as they stood staring determinedly up at Zordon, several of them half expecting the old wizard to smite them where they stood. After a long moment, the old Eltarian spoke, slowly and calmly but with an undeniable undertone of displeasure at being interrupted. “Very well, then. What do the two of you propose?”

Tommy and Jason looked at each other. From here on out they would be treading new ground. Jason raised an eyebrow; shockingly, Tommy thought he saw one corner of the Red Ranger’s mouth curl upward into the smallest hint of a smile.

“Oh my god. You’re loving this, aren’t you?” He asked in a stunned whisper. Jason’s grin grew wider.

“Hey, I didn’t get this job for my ability to be cautious,” he replied. “And for the record, I don’t remember asking you to stick our necks under the guillotine. You did that all by yourself; I’m just here for the fireworks.” Jason’s eyes twinkled. “Now, are you gonna do the honors, or should I?”

“Oh, by all means,” Tommy said, making an exaggerated gesture of invitation.

“Rangers.” Now Zordon made no attempt to mask his annoyance. “ _What do you propose?”_

Jason turned back to the floating head. “Re-engage teleportation capabilities. We want to go down there and get those coins, and get our families out of there, if we can.”

“I’m afraid that poses too great a risk of exposing your identities,” Zordon said with regret. “I cannot allow you to –“

“All due respect, Zordon.” This time Rocky spoke up before Adam had a chance to stop him. “You can take your rule about keeping our identities a secret and shove it up your…wherever you shove things up a head in a tube. Do you really think for one second that any of us would choose that over our own families?” His words were met by a murmur of assent. Jason spoke up again.

“Rocky’s right, Zordon. This is something we have to do. Tommy and I just spent the last half hour planning this out, we’re more than ready to get going.” He stepped forward and lowered his voice a little. “You’ve always trusted us to do the right thing before. It’s why you chose us in the first place, isn’t it? Well I’m asking you. Please. Trust us now.”

There was a long moment during which none of them moved; most of them barely breathed. They hadn’t actually defied Zordon like this in over four years of serving as Rangers together; it seemed even now, there were things they weren’t really prepared for. Rocky shifted his weight from one foot to another, his palms growing sweaty. Adam’s fingers played with the hem of his shirt; Tanya and Kat took each other’s hand, their eyes locked on the tube. Billy took his glasses off, wiped them on his shirt, and put them back on five consecutive times. Kim just stared at the floor.

Jason and Tommy fought with every ounce of willpower they possessed not to move a muscle.

After what felt like an eternity, Zordon laughed softly and smiled at them. “Very well,” he said, much less sternly this time. The entire room seemed to deflate with the strength of their relief. “You are right, Rangers. Of course I would not expect you to hold the rules of Ranger service in greater regard than your families’ safety. I admire all of your courage in standing together to make this argument. However, before I reactivate the teleportation system I need to make sure you’ve thought this through. We’ve just lost a teammate and a very dear friend; Zachary’s death hurts all of us very deeply, and I’m sure the desire for revenge is still very fresh in many of your minds. As unpleasant as it is to say, if you wish to charge into a potential battle I want to be sure you’re thinking clearly. Now,” he looked to Tommy and Jason in particular. “Jason. Tommy. What is your plan for this mission?”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Zordon,” Jason said. “You’re right; we’re all hurting right now. But I think we all agree that the best way to make Zack proud would be to get out there and start doing what we do best, and that’s making the world safer.”

“Yeah,” Tommy added. “Besides, we’re all going stir-crazy in here. Or did anybody actually understand what Rocky said before?” He looked around the room at some of the faces beginning to finally relax. “Now,” he continued, turning his back to the tube so he faced his fellow Rangers. “Where were we? Oh, yeah. Massive invading alien army, world’s a bombed-out hunk of charcoal, and Jason chose now to dump speech duties on me. So, as I was saying: here’s the deal. We don’t know jack shit about what these things are, where they came from or what they want. Like Zordon just said, information is extremely limited. What we do know is that we have four Rangers with no Power Coins and eleven families worth of people whose condition is still unknown. Now, we’ve learned from our global monitoring system that the attacks against Earth ground to a screeching halt the minute we got back here; what we don’t know is whether that had anything to do with us or whether it was just the most convenient coincidence in history, which means that whatever we do here, we have no choice but to assume the worst and haul ass.” Tommy put one hand in his pocket and began motioning with the other as he paced the room.

“Jason and I agree that the best way to do this is to split up. We can’t risk these guys detecting that we’re not dead and blasting us again any more than we absolutely have to, so if we’re gonna do this, we have to do it all at once.” He looked around at his friends, pausing on each face long enough to make eye contact. “Problem is, the four people who absolutely _have_ to go out there – the ones who know best where the coins are hidden – are morphing impaired and thus have no way to defend themselves. So. Here’s how it’s gonna be.” Tommy raised both his hands and held them up, spread apart, index fingers extended. “We go in groups. One person who can morph, one person who can’t. Jason and I have already agreed to go to his place together. Adam, you’re with Trini; Rocky, you go with Kim and Aisha. Everyone else stays here to watch our backs. We go in, get the coins, check on our families and teleport back _as soon as fucking possible_. Once we’re at full strength, we can figure out our next step. Questions?”

The word was barely out of Tommy’s mouth when Aisha’s hand went up. “Yeah, I have a question. Can I change my group? I’d rather not dive headfirst into the Alien Apocalypse with Daddy’s Little Defect over here as my only backup.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder at Rocky.

“Yeah, well, I’d rather not spend the next hour playing Driving Miss Crazy through the aftermath of a goddamn nuclear holocaust, but we can’t all have what we want,” Rocky retorted, gesturing angrily at Aisha’s back.

“Oh, for the love of _god_ , would you two knock that shit off?” Jason pushed himself off of Zordon’s tube and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Rocky, switch with Adam, and then both of you shut the fuck up.”

Aisha flung a hand out toward Jason and let it flop to her side. Rocky glanced at Adam, a glance that quickly became a glare at the grin on Adam’s face.

Kat looked up abruptly from where she sat atop a control console. “Wait a minute.” She rose to her feet; every eye in the room was suddenly on her. “I hate to ask this, but…” she took a deep breath and continued very softly, as though afraid of her own words. “What about Zack’s coin? We can’t just leave it out there; if you’re right and these things know how to track us somehow or whatever, what’s to say they won’t find it and use it? At the very least we have to get it and bring it back here to hide it from them.”

“Katherine is correct, Rangers,” Zordon’s voice boomed through the chamber. “With its previous owner deceased, the Black Power Coin is vulnerable to having its powers manipulated or tampered with. We cannot risk it falling into the wrong hands.”

“Right,” Tommy muttered. He shot a glance at Jason and received a nod in return. “OK, Kat, Tanya, you two go together to Zack’s place. Search for the coin, check up on his family and your own and then meet the rest of us back here. Anything else?”

“What about Billy?” Tanya still stood within leaning range of the Viewing Globe; as she spoke, she glanced from Tommy to Jason to Billy and back again. “What’s he gonna do while the rest of us are gone?”

Billy looked up at Tanya from his seat on the floor. He removed his glasses, wiped them on his shirt and began to slowly stand up, his mouth working soundlessly around words he couldn’t spit out. Jason chose that moment to jump in.

“Billy’s gonna be watching our backs, monitoring the scanners, maintaining teleportation capacity…you know, the usual.”

Billy cracked a smile. “Thanks, Jason,” he said much more calmly. “But they need to know. Besides, you’ve never really been great at forced nonchalance.”

“I found it very convincing,” Trini interjected, raising her hand and winking at Jason, who rolled his eyes and grumbled.

“Don’t patronize me.”

“Anyway,” Kim said loudly. “What do we need to know, Billy?”

Billy sighed. “Umm…” his voice trailed off and he rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “I’m gonna be doing an autopsy on Zack.”

A sudden silence hung over the room for a moment. The Rangers exchanged a few confused looks before a general murmur of “Yeah, OK,” ran through the chamber.

The Blue Ranger raised an eyebrow. “Hold on. You guys are all OK with this?”

Rocky cocked his head to one side, as though bewildered. “Uh, yeah. We need all the intel we can get right now. We all hate that Zack’s gone but there’s nothing we can do to change that anymore, so…why not? It can’t possibly make things worse, and we all trust you to be respectful.”

Adam smirked beside him. “And we’ve all almost completely depleted our reservoir of maturity in handling this issue,” he said. “Which is probably why we’ve all been acting like whiny little bitches for the last couple hours.”

“Well, now that that crisis is averted, let’s get to work,” Tommy said, rubbing his hands together. Suddenly, he froze in place and flicked his eyes back and forth. “What’s wrong with this picture?”

Jason snapped his fingers. “Alpha,” he answered. “I _thought_ something was wrong here. Where the hell is he?”

Trini pointed to the double doors. “Zord Hangar. He’s running diagnostics.”

Jason seemed satisfied with that. He interlaced his fingers and cracked his knuckles. “All right, then. Everyone ready? Trini, you’re with Rocky; Aisha and Kim, you’re with Adam. Remember, guys, stick together and only morph as an absolute last resort – I don’t want to make it any easier for these things to track us down. I want this done fast but done _right_ , and for Christ’s sake be careful. Last thing we need is another casualty.”

A collective sigh went through the room before Tommy said, “OK, Billy. Initiate teleportation.”

Billy nodded and reached for a switch. “Good luck, Rangers,” Zordon said. “And may the power protect you.”

Jason turned and shot Zordon a two finger salute as all but one of the people in the Main Chamber dissolved into beams of flickering light, a wide spectrum of colored rays that shot straight up at dizzying speeds and disappeared through the Command Center’s distant roof.

* * *

**Campbell/Hart Residence  
** **Angel Grove, CA  
** **August 28, 2012  
** **7:15 PM PDT**

As the pink, green and purple sparks shimmered out of existence around them, Kim, Adam and Aisha glanced at each other in confusion as they took in their surroundings. The three of them stood atop the roof of Kimberly’s house, looking out over a bombed-out suburban street filled with smoking hulks of metal that had once been cars. Over the tops of the few still-intact trees scattered along the side of the street below, they could see rising columns of smoke and the charred husks of several taller buildings. A few of them still burned, the air around them saturated with the smells of smoke and dust. Aisha moved slowly along the roof to the nearest ledge, her shoes crunching on the small chunks of debris that littered the surface. When the ground beneath her feet ended, the purple-clad girl leaned forward over the side as far as she dared and peered down at what lay below. “Um…guys?”

Kim was a step ahead. “What the hell are we doing on my roof? Couldn’t Billy have just put us down in the front yard like he always does?”

“Maybe, but I must say I think we can get to your room faster from here.” Adam caught his companions’ attention and pointed to the gaping hole in the roof a few dozen feet from where they’d landed. Kim and Aisha came running over, the three Rangers gathering at the edge of the hole as the blood slowly drained from their faces in shock. Through the opening in the roof they could see into Kim’s bedroom.

What was left of it. Whatever had made the hole had continued along its trajectory through the bedroom wall and taken out a sizeable chunk of the hallway at the top of the stairs on its way out. From their vantage point on the roof, the three of them could see all the way through to the side yard, where a divot at least ten feet long had been carved out of the grass. Kim took an unsteady step back from the hole and raised a hand to her mouth. Adam glanced up at her and frowned in concern at her greenish pall. “Kim? You OK?”

Kim didn’t answer, just turned on her heel and ran to the edge of the roof. She skidded to a stop inches from the edge and leaned forward, hands on her knees, preparing to throw up, when she saw it.

“Guys?” She called over her shoulder. Adam and Aisha hurried over to her and Kim pointed frantically over the edge. “Look.”

The others followed Kim’s finger and beheld what remained of the front part of Kim’s house. The porch had been covered by a wood and steel awning supported by columns, attached to the house at a point just under twenty feet off the ground. Upon glancing down at the porch, Adam and Aisha realized that the support columns had been destroyed; without them to support it, the awning’s weight had caused it to collapse onto the porch, tearing a huge chunk out of the house’s façade as it did so. Where the porch had once been was nothing but a pile of random debris.

Adam whistled softly. “Shit. Explains your front door question.”

Aisha stepped back toward the hole and raised her communicator to her mouth. “Billy, it’s Aisha, come in.”

“Hey Sha, what’s up? Everything OK?” Billy’s voice squawked from the communicator.

“Got a question for you,” Aisha said, glancing up briefly as Adam rejoined her. Kim still stood at the ledge, staring down at the devastation in her front yard. “Why are we on the roof of Kim’s house? Couldn’t you have just put us down in the front yard?”

“Adam didn’t tell you?” At Billy’s question, Adam winced and groaned.

“God damn it.”

Billy chuckled and went on. “As Alpha told Adam a few hours ago, there’s some kind of interference out there that’s fucking up our teleportation and communication systems. We can’t teleport you anywhere less than thirty feet off the ground. You guys are lucky Kim’s house is so big and relatively intact; I had to put Tommy and Jason down on top of a grocery store almost four blocks from Tommy’s house. It was the closest place high enough for a safe teleport.”

“Jesus,” Aisha breathed, running a hand over her face. She looked up again and saw over Adam’s shoulder that Kim was still standing at the edge of the roof, staring down at the destruction. “Thanks Billy,” she said tersely, cutting the link before Billy could respond. “Kim?” She called out to her friend. “You coming?”

Kim turned and looked at her, and both Aisha and Adam were stunned by the look of terror on her face. She pointed over the edge one more time. “There’s something down there.”

Adam frowned. “What?” He and Aisha returned to the ledge and looked down again. “Kim, there’s nothing there, it’s just a pile of wood and sheetrock.”

“Damn it, Adam, I’m telling you there was something down there,” Kim replied insistently. “It stuck its head out through the hole above the porch like it heard us talking, but I don’t think it saw us.” Adam sighed.

“OK, fine. I believe you. But it doesn’t change what we came here for. We still have to get both your Power Coins and check on all of our families, so unless you’re in the mood for a climb I suggest we get back to that hole.”

Kim seemed hesitant, but at a supportive look from Aisha she nodded, squared her shoulders and followed her friends back to the gaping maw in the roof. “All right, Kim,” Adam said, holding out a hand. “You know the room the best. You go first.”

Kim arched her eyebrows. “Me? Of the three of us, which one A) is still morphing capable and B) had this idea in the first place?”

Adam smirked at her. “OK,” he said. “Fine. Help lower me down. I only weigh 190 pounds, I’m sure that’s nothing to you two.” Kim and Aisha looked at each other sheepishly. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Ladies first!” He took hold of Kim’s hand and practically dragged her to the lip of the opening. “Ready?” She nodded. “1…2…3!” Kim hopped off the roof and swung down into the hole, letting Adam hold her weight.

“OK, I’m good,” she said after steadying herself. Adam released his hold and she dropped the remaining few feet to the singed carpet. The room was deathly quiet, the only sounds her own breathing and the wind whistling by the puncture wound in the ceiling. Kim took a moment to orient herself. The coin wasn’t actually in here – she’d hidden it in one of a dozen pockets sewn into a quilt her grandmother had given her when she was a kid, which was now folded in a closet in the master bedroom. Edging forward carefully toward the door, Kim tried to ignore the sight of most of her Earthly possessions lying upturned, broken and burned in the wake of the attack. She pressed the soles of her feet ever so gently into the carpet, breathing slowly in an attempt to slow her rapidly accelerating heart rate.

A sound echoed from her right. She snapped her head around and saw only her closet door, hanging from a broken hinge and creaking softly as it swung back and forth. Kim sighed and wiped the sheen of sweat away from her forehead. She took another careful step forward, then another. Finally she curled her fingers around the door jamb and tentatively extended a foot out over the hole in the hallway floor.

This time the sound she heard was much more menacing. A series of footsteps, loud, angry, approaching rapidly from the left, and a chilling growling noise that reminded her of werewolf movies. Kim yanked her foot back into the room and hugged the wall, praying that whatever it was would pass her by and not find her long enough for her to morph. After a long, tense moment, she seemed to get her wish – the footsteps seemed to retreat and the growling quieted to nothing. Sighing deeply with relief, she gathered her courage, threw the door open and practically leapt through the doorway, across the giant gap in the floor, and into the corridor.

And recoiled in terror at the horrific sight that awaited her there.

* * *

**Angel Grove High School  
** **Angel Grove, CA  
** **August 28, 2012  
** **7:15 PM PDT**

“Well this is just goddamn perfect.” Rocky folded his arms over his chest in exasperation and stared out over the parking lot of the high school, where a few bombed-out corpses of cars still lay smoldering amidst the craters and scattered fires. He sighed, shook his head and turned angrily on one heel, the soles of his shoes crunching on the gravel and singed brick as he strode toward where Trini stood by the emergency access door. “Most advanced technology for three solar systems and we can’t even teleport any closer than half a mile from either of our houses. I missed the part where our teleportation controls were being sponsored by Delta.”

Trini didn’t respond right away. She leaned a shoulder against the door and tried the latch. When nothing happened, she gripped the latch tighter and thrust her weight against it several times, grunting with exertion. The door still wouldn’t give. Finally, Trini turned and glared at Rocky. “You gonna help me or you gonna stand there and bitch?”

Rocky raised a surprised eyebrow. “The hell is your problem?”

Trini snorted and shoved past him, making her way to the opposite ledge where she could look out over the field behind the school. The property continued past the destroyed football field, baseball diamond, tennis courts and several soccer fields before terminating in a thin line of trees that hid the school ground from the adjacent subdivision, where both of their houses hopefully still stood. Tendrils of smoke drifted lazily up into the air, the sky turned a dull, stony gray by the dark clouds of smog. Rocky stared at her back for a long moment; he was about to step toward her when she turned her head to one side and spoke.

“How much time do you got?”

Rocky cracked a bitter half smile and nodded. “Yeah. That kind of day.”

Trini let out a cynical laugh. “You haven’t exactly been helping.”

He frowned, a gesture he knew she couldn’t see. “Last time I checked we were both on the same team.”

She whirled around and scowled at him. “So why don’t you start fucking acting like it?” In the stunned silence that followed Trini took a step toward him. “I don’t think there’s ever been a time when our chances of winning, of _surviving_ , have depended more on our ability to work as a cohesive unit, and yet instead of doing anything constructive or useful, you’ve wasted most of your time since the attacks started questioning what Zordon’s doing as though _he_ was the one that caused all this.” She swung an arm out to include the entire dystopian landscape laid out before them.

Rocky stood his ground. “How much of this do you think could’ve been avoided if he had let us teleport out sooner? He keeps trying to protect us like we were children and he’s getting more and more people killed in order to do it. Aisha agrees with me.”

Trini rolled her eyes. “Cut the bullshit, Rocky. The only reason I’m with you right now is because Aisha doesn’t want anything to do with you. What, did you think her whole thing about not being in the same group with you was some kind of deception tactic? You’re just lucky I have more self control than she does or I probably would’ve kicked your ass by now.”

His tone became deathly serious. “You would’ve _tried_.”

Trini put her hands on her hips and regarded him for a long moment. “All right. Fine. I think we both realize the other isn’t going to back down, so for the time being can we please just get this done? Once I have my coin back I can beat you in an even fight.” He arched his eyebrows at that. “Now go on,” she continued, motioning toward the door. “You’re the one with the morphing-enhanced strength. Why don’t you make us a way down?”

He glanced from her to the door and back before shrugging and stepping toward it, clenching and unclenching his fists. As he passed her, she grabbed him by the shoulder and leaned in close. “And please, at least _try_ to do it stealthily. The less attention we alert to our being here, the better.”

He grinned. “Please. I am a master of grace and agility.” Before Trini had a chance to respond, Rocky turned and darted past her, sprinting toward the edge of the roof at full speed. At the last possible second, he dove forward, launching himself into a round-off back handspring that brought his hands down directly on the edge of the roof. Letting his momentum take over, Rocky swung around in a wide arc, bent his knees, and slammed his feet into a third floor window, shattering the glass and sending him flying through the new opening. His head cleared the window sill by inches and he slammed to the hard floor on his back, driving the wind from his lungs.

“Ow,” he grunted, rolling slowly to one side and rising to stand on shaky legs. As he glanced around, he realized he was standing in one of the biology labs. The room that led to the emergency roof access door was one they’d used numerous times; it was a back room that could be accessed from any of the third-floor science classrooms, and Rocky knew the way like the back of his hand.

Brushing some of the dust off of his shirt, Rocky jogged across the room and opened a door behind the teacher’s desk to reveal a storage corridor, where all of the science equipment was kept. The room was dark – no windows provided any natural lighting and the bulbs lay dormant. Jagged, irregular shadows deepened the inky void that lay in front of him; the air was stiflingly still. Rocky felt a bead of sweat trace a winding path down the back of his neck. As he moved forward, he thought he heard something moving in the darkness. He froze on pure instinct, one hand groping the wall for a light switch.

_As though they’ll actually still have power, you idiot._

Wincing at a fresh wave of pain that jolted through his shoulder blades, Rocky took another few hesitant steps forward, his hands wandering down to the morpher at the small of his back. The ladder to the roof access door was only another few yards down this corridor, if only he could –

That’s when he heard them. Footsteps, several of them, moving his way fast. Unnaturally fast. Faster than any human should be able to –

_Oh, balls._

Rocky charged forward, dodging the odd shelf and leaping over anything dark enough to look solid as he raced for the ladder. As he reached the base, he heard the footsteps growing louder. Closer. Faster.

Angrier.

He skidded to a stop at the base of the yellow wrought-iron ladder that led to the roof; at the same time, he felt his hand close around the morpher on his belt.

“Trini!” He called up toward the ceiling. “Get the hell out of the way, we got company!” With a quick flash of blinding crimson light, he activated the morpher, drew his blaster without even waiting for the armor to fully encase him and squeezed the trigger, letting the blast charge up to almost seventy percent full power before releasing a massive energy surge that blew a hole in the ceiling almost ten feet wide. The new light spilling in cast grotesque shadows of whatever was closing in on him on the floor, but Rocky didn’t take the time to look around. He bent at the knees and launched himself into the air, soaring out through the hole and toward the edge of the roof. His feet made contact with the ground just long enough for him to barrel toward Trini, wrap her in a bear hug and fling them both over the edge, dropping the thirty-plus feet to the ground. Rocky allowed his morphed form to take the brunt of the impact, shielding Trini with his body as best he could as they rolled away from the building and darted under the bleachers near the track for cover.

As he demorphed, Rocky shot a glance at Trini, who was staring back up at the school, panting, her eyes still shining from the shock of what had just happened. “Well, if they didn’t know we were here before they certainly do now.”

“Sorry,” he muttered, preparing himself to cover the open area between here and their ultimate goal. “No other choice. Something in there was closing in on me.”

Trini turned and surveyed the area before her eyes flicked back to meet his own. She braced herself for the dash, coiling her body against the metal supports like an Olympic runner in the starting blocks, and motioned for him to do the same. Just as Rocky was about to throw himself into the line of fire, Trini looked down and shook her head, a wry smile worming its way onto her face.

He nudged her. “What?” She scooted closer and put her mouth right up to his ear.

“You have all the grace and agility of a retarded hippo.”

The two of them laughed then, huddled there under the bleachers; nervous, frightened, almost manically giddy laughter, laughter borne out of desperation to avoid going mad in the face of one’s own impending mortality.

They took the briefest of moments to stifle themselves.

Then they ran.

* * *

**CommTek Radio Tower  
** **2 Miles Southeast of the Angel Grove Youth Center  
** **Angel Grove, CA  
** **August 28, 2012  
** **7:15 PM PDT**

Kat curled her fingers tighter around the thin, cold metal support beam and leaned out a little further from the tower, squinting against the harsh blasts of dust that buffeted her face as she peered across the ruined landscape that spread out below her. She took several slow but shallow breaths through her mouth, trying not to let the dust get blown down her throat.

“What do you see?” Tanya called up. Kat glanced down at where her friend was perched, about ten feet below her, crouched on a small metal platform next to an electrical box. The two of them had landed atop the radio tower near the Youth Center, only a couple streets down from Tanya’s house. Before making a potentially dangerous descent, they decided they would check to see if they could locate any potential threats.

“Well,” Kat called back, pointing at things as she spoke. “The ship hasn’t moved – it’s still floating over where City Hall used to be. The Youth Center is completely blown to hell; I think the High School might be intact but it’s hard to tell from here, and the only activity appears to be over by the park.” She pointed over Tanya’s head at where a crowd had begun to form in the still-smoldering remains of Angel Grove Park, tiny shapes barely distinguishable as people milling about among the small fires and irregular patches of grass left unscathed. “There are a lot of people going over there for some reason.”

Tanya followed Kat’s finger and frowned. “That seem safe to you? Cause from what I can tell it’s got suspicious written all over it.”

Kat climbed down a few feet so she was even with Tanya. “Only one real way to find out.”

Tanya shook her head. “No way, Kat. You heard what they said back there, these things can lock onto our energy signatures. Morphing now would be like holding up a giant neon sign saying ‘Bomb Here.’ At the very least, if we’re going to investigate this, we need something to draw their attention elsewhere.”

Kat thought for a moment before lifting her communicator to her mouth. “Billy? Billy it’s Kat, come in.”

Billy’s voice answered a second later. “Yeah, hey Kat. What’s happening?”

“Tanya and I have a large crowd of survivors gathering in the park under what may be unpleasant circumstances. We need a way to distract them so that we can morph and get down there fast before any more shit starts hitting the fan.”

Kat had barely finished talking when an explosion ripped through the uneasy silence that had descended on the aftermath. The two Rangers whipped their heads around in time to see the roof of the high school explode outward, a blast of red light tearing through it and soaring away into the sky. Kat and Tanya just stared at it silently for a moment, mouths hanging open, then slowly turned back to each other.

Kat shrugged. “Um…never mind, Billy. That’ll work.”

As the two of them pulled out their morphers, they heard Billy start to mutter, “Shit, that came from the high school, didn’t it? I knew putting Rocky and Trini together was a bad idea…” He said more, but Kat cut off the link and nodded to Tanya.

“Ready?”

“Whenever you are.” The two of them activated the morphers, and as the blinding flashes of gold and silver light began to engulf them, they released their hold on the tower and let themselves fall. Kat felt her stomach leap into her throat, the wind whipping by as she watched the armor begin to encase her. Glancing to her left, she saw Tanya a few feet above her, completely armored now, tucking her chin and relaxing her knees in preparation for the landing. Kat braced herself as well, and a few seconds later she felt the impact, cushioned by the armor against the bones of her lower back.

As they hit the ground, the two women tucked and rolled away from the tower, deactivating their morphers as they went. The armor disappeared as quickly as it had come, leaving them back in their civilian clothes.

“You know, I never thought we’d ever be using that armor as a glorified parachute,” Kat observed as they brushed themselves off and moved toward the growing crowd of people nearby. “But you know what they say about desperate times.”

Tanya chuckled. “I just wish we could draw our blasters without being morphed, I really don’t like the idea of approaching a potential extraterrestrial clusterfuck without a handheld laser strapped to my hip.” The two of them paused and looked at each other for a moment before she added, “Our lives are weird.”

Giggling softly, the two women darted across the street and took cover in a handful of trees that stood relatively undamaged at the edge of the park. From their vantage point, they could see now that the crowd of people they had observed from atop the tower was actually surrounded by some kind of fence made of shimmering bluish-green lines of energy that ran between sets of metal poles about ten feet tall. The only opening they could see was blocked by a gate made of a single slab of thick metal, no handle or keypad of any kind visible on its shiny outer surface.

“What the hell is that?” Kat whispered, pushing a branch away for a better look.

“It looks like some kind of prison camp,” Tanya said, poking her head out and daring a look around the corner. “That fence goes on for at least long enough to contain the entire park, if not more. We should try to get closer.” 

Kat glanced around a few times. “The coast looks clear. Let’s go.” They emerged from their cover and walked carefully toward the enclosure, trying to appear totally ordinary as they strode across the charred grass, entirely exposed. Upon approach, they realized the people inside the fence had all been divided into small clusters of six or seven that had been chained together, their restraints glowing with a soft red light. Kat trotted up to the fence and began walking its length, searching for something inside that might indicate what these people were doing here.

“Kat!” Tanya’s voice echoed across the open area like a gunshot. Kat jogged back to where her companion still stood, rooted to one spot, mouth agape as she stared at something inside the fence.

“Are you crazy?” Kat hissed angrily in Tanya’s ear. “Do you _want_ them to come and kill us?” In response, Tanya simply reached out, grabbed Kat by the chin and swung her head around to face the fence. What Kat saw then took a few seconds to register, but when it did, her eyes widened in shock and she couldn’t help but gasp a little. The group of people standing nearest them, about seven strong and not ten feet away, were strikingly familiar, especially the two dark-skinned ones.

“Holy shit, Tan,” she whispered, her voice made weak by shock. “Those are your parents.”

* * *

**SaveMart Supermarket  
** **Angel Grove, CA  
** **August 28, 2012  
** **7:15 PM PDT**

“We clear?”

Tommy flinched a little as Jason came up behind him. He was standing at the edge of the roof of the grocery store where he’d just been to buy snacks for a Ranger party a few nights ago and staring out over a bombed out parking lot, cars overturned and smoking, small fires still burning on exposed patches of grass. He turned his head slightly and regarded Jason in his peripheral vision. “I think I read about this in a Cormac McCarthy novel once.”

“No, I think you saw it in a _Mad Max_ movie,” Jason replied, slugging him softly on the arm. “Seriously, though – we clear? I’d prefer to avoid a roaming gang of bikers killing us for getting between them and the nearest gas station.”

Tommy smiled wryly and nodded. “We’re clear for most of the way to my place, as far as I can tell. Shouldn’t take long to check on my folks and then head to your house.”

“Good.” Jason turned his back to Tommy and glanced around the roof. “First things first though – we need to find a way down that doesn’t involve morphing or a forty-foot fall. You see an emergency ladder or anything around here we can use?”

Tommy hesitated, as though afraid that by tearing his gaze away from the landscape he would doom it to further destruction. Finally, though, he looked at Jason over his shoulder. “There has to be some kind of roof access around here somewhere. We just have to find it.”

Jason didn’t say anything, just shifted his gaze to the ground and began scanning their surroundings. Suddenly he stopped and pointed. “There.” Tommy followed his friend’s finger and noticed what appeared to be a trapdoor set into the roof, white metal standing out against dull gray of gravel and concrete. Upon approach, the two of them realized the door was held shut by a latch that only appeared to open from the inside. Jason bent down and started grabbing and pulling at a few random places that might have been structural weak points with no luck. Grunting in frustration, he looked up at Tommy and arched his eyebrows expectantly. “Suggestions?”

“Oh yeah,” Tommy said with mock enthusiasm. “Let me just pull a fucking crowbar out of my ass and we’ll be golden.”

“Well it’s either that or we’re pryin this bitch open with nothing but your sarcasm,” Jason replied, rocking back onto his butt and staring up at Tommy. “And as biting as it is I don’t think it can bend metal.”

“You should’ve been here for my graduation speech,” Tommy muttered, folding his arms over his chest. He let out a breath and took another look around the rooftop, the flat surface spreading out over a sizeable area, topped with gray concrete and a thin layer of gravel that had somehow survived the earlier bombardment completely intact. Snorting, the White Ranger turned on his heel to face out over the parking lot, where the setting sun was still barely visible through the haze of dust and smoke that blanketed the town like the inside of a snow globe, and began pacing, heading for the edge. He hadn’t taken five steps when he felt the roof give way beneath him and then he was falling, a startled yelp leaping from his mouth; for a millisecond or two he felt his feet actually kick back and forth as if trying to walk on thin air.

“Jase-!” Was all he managed to choke out before his momentum finally tilted him forward and his chest crashed into the edge of the newly formed hole, driving the air from his lungs and jarring his hands free from whatever precarious hold they might have managed to find. Tommy began sliding backwards into the hole, unable to see behind him but knowing what lay ahead: either he’d have to morph to protect himself from the impact and bring a million man alien death march right down on their heads or he’d be so torn by indecision he’d hit the ground and die. Neither one seemed incredibly appealing – and then Jason was there, skidding to a halt and diving to his chest as he came around the edge of the hole, wrapping both his hands around Tommy’s wrists and digging in with his knees.

“God damn it,” he grunted, straining a little at Tommy’s weight. “How many of you people am I gonna have to catch today?”

“Oh, come on,” Tommy said with a sheepish laugh. “We both know how much you love playing the hero.”

“Tell that to the gravel digging into my stomach.” Jason pulled himself forward and craned his neck to peer over Tommy’s head. “There’s a bunch of support beams about a foot down, they’re maybe six inches wide. If I let go can you land on one without racking yourself?”

Tommy shrugged. “I’m sure I’ve done worse things to my balls in the past four years.”

“I so did not need to hear that.” Jason groaned. He licked his lips and took a deep breath. “Ready? One, two…”

He let go just as a huge explosion echoed across the landscape, shaking the ground and casting the sky a blinding shade of red. Jason flinched at the sudden tremor, jerking to his right and letting first Tommy’s right hand and then his left slip free of his grasp.

That flinch probably saved Tommy’s life. As Jason twisted sideways, Tommy’s body was yanked around so that he was parallel to the beam below; that meant that when Jason let go of his hands, instead of the beam being between Tommy’s legs it was just behind his knees. He landed initially in a seated position but he was still falling backwards and thus wound up dangling upside down from the beam by his knees. Grunting with the effort, he curled his fingers around the beam and used his biceps and stomach to pull himself back up to a seated position from which he could survey the inside of the store.

It was nearly pristine. The shelves still sat fully stocked with food, the attacks happening so fast and hard they hadn’t left time for looting. A network of beams both horizontal and vertical spanned the ceiling, crisscrossing the length of the store about thirty feet above the floor. The main weight of the roof was supported by a series of six or seven thick concrete columns that erupted from evenly spaced parts of the floor like a set of stony teeth.

Except for one. Turning his gaze back toward the hole in the roof, Tommy could discern the remains of one of the columns dangling from the ceiling, its outline made jagged by the edge of the hole. He glanced down and realized immediately what had happened. A single large piece of the storefront had been blown out, the brick and plate glass window marred by an opening that held, almost cartoonishly, the shape of the fiery locomotive that had come barreling through it, leveling the column as it went.

Tommy glanced up through the hole in the roof. “Most of what’s in here’s still in surprisingly good shape,” he called up. Jason suddenly appeared from just beyond the edge. “And even better, it looks deserted. If we can make our way down we can probably just –“

Jason didn’t wait for him to finish. He brought his feet together and swan dove through the hole, catching the rail Tommy sat on in one hand and whipping his body around it. As he completed his rotation, the Red Ranger grabbed on with his other hand and locked his elbows, coming to a rest at a perfect handstand from which he bent his knees, curled his legs into his chest and planted his feet on the beam. He turned to Tommy and grinned; the White Ranger raised an eyebrow in reply. “Are you sure your shoulder was dislocated? And perhaps more pressingly, where the hell did you learn how to do that?”

“What, you think I stopped working out in Switzerland?” Jason chuckled. “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t finish that sentence and jinx us up the ass. I’m guessing six more words out of your mouth and we would’ve had a hundred of those fuckers pouring in on us.” No sooner had Jason spoken than there came the tinkling of breaking glass and the pounding thuds of dozens of footsteps from outside the store. Jason blew a frustrated breath out through his nose and rolled his eyes.

“Son of a bitch.”

* * *

**Campbell/Hart Residence  
** **7:20 PM**

Adam turned to Aisha and gestured toward the hole in Kim’s roof. “OK, Sha, you’re next.” Aisha stepped forward and peered into Kim’s bedroom through the ceiling, glancing nervously at the shadows that enveloped most of the room’s corners and the empty hallway into which Kim had just disappeared. She was about to reply with some bit of snark and a Stephen King reference but before her mouth was even open Kim came charging back into the room, slamming the door behind her, her features twisted with terror.

“Adam!” Kim screamed, sprinting to the wall just beneath them and pressing herself against it. “Get your ass down here!”

Adam frowned. “Kim, what the hell did you see out there?”

As if in response, Kimberly’s bedroom door was blasted off its hinges, leaving another gaping hole in the superstructure of her home. Aisha and Adam threw arms up to cover their eyes and Kim shrunk into a protective ball, but the blast had turned her bedroom door into a projectile, sending it barreling toward her, whipping around lethally as it went.

Adam didn’t think; he moved on pure instinct. In these situations, it seemed most of the time the Rangers fared better when they did that. Leaping into the air, he activated his morpher, releasing a flash of green light as he dove toward Earth again. Just as the morph completed, he spun in a tight circle, extended a leg and caught the door in midair with a devastatingly powerful kick, bouncing it back toward the doorway where it slammed into the wall just to the left of the empty doorframe and embedded itself in the plaster. Adam completed his rotation and landed on one knee in front of Kim, throwing an arm out to balance himself. He vaguely heard Aisha cry out “Holy shit!” from the roof behind him, but by then he’d looked up and beheld what Kim had been running from.

If somebody had asked Adam three hours ago what the thing standing in front of him would look like, his combination of writing talent and battle experience could’ve spun him off into a thousand different terrifying directions – and every one of them would’ve been wrong. The thing standing in front of him probably would’ve given Lovecraft nightmares; Adam knew he needed to see it, to be prepared for anything so he could do his job, but there was still a very vocal part of him that wished he hadn’t looked.

The creature’s face could almost have passed for human, if not for the bright orange, glimmering compound eyes, the two empty slits where a nose should’ve been, the lack of visible ears and the combination of a pair of crab-like mandibles and something that vaguely resembled a butterfly proboscis that seemed to be pasted onto the head where the mouth would’ve been. The thing’s entire body was a deep shade of blue, its skin resembling a mix between reptilian scales and insectile exoskeleton. It was dressed – if you could call it that – in what looked like the tattered remains of a button-down shirt and jeans that had exploded outward at the cuffs to accommodate the creature’s double feet, two protruding from the end of each leg like some kind of weird Siamese twin. Six hooked, barbed toes protruded from each of the alien’s four feet; a seventh claw protruded from the leg at approximately the spot where a human ankle would be, this one gleaming in the light like a straight razor and tapping on the floor like the velociraptors from _Jurassic Park_.

But the arms were the part that Adam knew he’d be catching glimpses of around dark corners for the next few decades. They were long, gangly, tentacle-like appendages that looked jointless but moved as though they had bones and nearly reached the floor. At the end of each one was a huge, misshapen lump of flesh that was apparently a hand, but there seemed to be no fingers or any movable extremities attached to it. What it did have protruding from it was a cluster of several jagged, deadly looking claws almost a foot long that scraped gently on the floor. Suddenly, as Adam watched in breathless horror, the claws began to move, gliding across the surface of the deformed hand like bamboo reeds being moved through water from underneath, until they were drawn as tightly together as possible, forming solid spears at the ends of each of the thing’s arms. The alien cocked its head at them for a moment, as though it was contemplating what to do about them. Then it raised its arms, bent its knees (some far off part of Adam’s mind was able to notice that they bent backwards) – and attacked.

Adam hadn’t moved since he had landed on the floor of Kim’s bedroom, and thus he was still kneeling in the middle of the room with one arm flung out to the side as the thing charged at him, its arm-spears raised in preparation for the kill. At the last possible second, Adam lowered his hands to the floor, brought his feet together and leapt into the air, soaring over the creature’s head. As he went over, Adam got a glimpse of Kim helping Aisha down into the room, the two of them flipped surreally upside down. As it passed beneath him, the alien swung one of its spear claw tentacles straight up in an attempt to bisect him, but Adam was ready. He caught the tightly bunched cluster of claws in both hands, completed a front flip to land on his feet just behind the creature, and flung the claw forward with every ounce of strength he could muster. The alien was snapped back from Kim and Aisha like it was attached to a giant bungee cord; Adam thrust the claws toward the ground in front of him as hard as he could, feeling the creature’s weight whipped forward over his head. Just as he felt the slight wave of air from the thing passing over him, Adam let go to send the creature crashing through the wall in front of him and tumbling down the stairs. He turned to Kim and Aisha, who were already hurrying to back him up, even in their powerless state.

“Get your coins and get your asses back here. Go!” He called to them as he moved to follow the alien. The two girls scrambled down the hallway, both disappearing into different rooms, as Adam approached the top of the stairs. “You want me, you blue piece of shit?” He muttered under his breath. “Come and get me.”

* * *

**Angel Grove High School Grounds  
** **7:20 PM**

Trini shot a glance over one shoulder, ducking instinctively as another grapefruit-sized sphere of glowing red energy went zipping over her head and buried itself in the grass just ahead of her. She and Rocky sprinted across the completely open soccer field toward the line of ruined houses beyond, swerving erratically toward and away from each other as randomly as possible in a desperate attempt to avoid the constant stream of enemy fire that came barreling towards them from the high school.

Shielding her eyes from the cascade of uprooted dirt that rained down from the impact site, Trini dug a foot into the grass and shot off at a different angle, fists and knees pumping as she flew across the open land, a thin sheen of sweat beginning to form on her forehead. The wind whipped by in her ears, adding a thrumming backdrop to the pounding of her heart; the frantic intensity of her movements tossed strands of her hair across her face and into her mouth and eyes. Trini feigned left and dashed to the right, feeling a brief rush of heat as yet another energy blast passed within inches of her shoulders. Rocky suddenly appeared in her peripheral vision and Trini grabbed his shoulder and shoved him ahead of her, her heart leaping into her throat for a second at the stumble he took as she threw him forward. The young Hispanic man went to one knee, dug his fingers into the ground and vaulted back to his feet, shooting Trini a death glare as he leapt out of her path and resumed his pace, turning to shout at her over his shoulder.

“The fuck was that for?”

“Tell you what,” Trini shot back viciously, twisting to one side to allow an energy ball to pass harmlessly by. “You come up with a worse time to morph in the next 24 hours and I’ll take it back.”

“If both of us are still alive in 24 hours,” Rocky panted, slowing up just enough so that they were running next to each other. “It’ll be because I morphed when I did. You should be fucking _thanking_ me. Hey, dugout!”

Rocky grabbed Trini’s arm and yanked her to the right, leaping over a low-flying energy blast as he charged toward the baseball diamond a few yards away. The glowing green ball passed harmlessly under Rocky’s feet and disappeared into the ground off to his left; Trini had only the briefest of moments to wonder why it didn’t carve out a divot as it made contact with the earth before they were suddenly running over dirt and chalk. The hard surface of the infield kicked up a cloud of dust behind them as they sprinted toward the dugout. As they neared the covered, slightly below ground structure, Rocky and Trini dropped into nearly identical foot-first baseball slides, ducking under the barrage of energy balls as they soared over the lip of the dugout and landed on the bench.

“OK,” Trini muttered as they brushed themselves off and leaned against the lip of the embankment to catch their breath. “What now?”

By the time she’d turned back to Rocky, he was already halfway morphed again and was drawing his blaster. “This.” Curling one hand around the edge of the dugout’s roof, Rocky pulled himself up, twisted his body, wrapped his arm around the side and began firing back toward the school before the armor had even covered him completely. Almost immediately the onslaught of enemy fire tapered off to nothing as their opponents presumably took cover. Trini groaned and grabbed Rocky’s leg, tugging him back behind the enclosure.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” She practically shouted into his face.

He cocked his head at her. “Did you forget the meaning of ‘covering fire’ after two years in Switzerland? I was distracting them so you could get to your coin.”

“Alone. Unarmed. For another half a mile. Through the bombed-out ruins of a conquered city and a welcoming committee of a few thousand extremely hostile aliens we know nothing about. Right. Us splitting up now is fucking genius.”

Rocky heaved an exaggerated sigh and shoved his blaster back into the holster. “Would you rather I carry you the rest of the way? Becau- shit!” Rocky leapt forward, tackling Trini to the ground as the alien that had appeared from behind the other side of the dugout whipped its clawed tentacle toward her unprotected back. He felt the grotesque lump of flesh that passed for the creature’s hand brush across his shoulder blades before the lethal claws buried themselves an inch deep in the concrete wall behind him. Twisting himself in midair, Rocky flicked his wrist and felt his fingers close around the hilt of the sword that appeared there; he swung the weapon in a vicious upward arc and let the momentum of his body spinning provide additional power. The blade made contact with the tentacle at the exact instant Rocky felt his tailbone smack into the floor between Trini’s thighs.

The blade of Rocky’s sword cut through the exposed tentacle with surprising ease, severing it neatly at a point about three feet from the shoulder. A shower of dark red blood, so red it was almost black, rained down on them, and Rocky found himself instinctively covering his face even though his armor was resistant to every toxin or chemical weapon in the known universe. The detached limb bounced off his feet as it flopped to the floor; for a moment there was absolute silence, and Rocky thought the thing might have retreated. But the earsplitting shriek of pain and unmistakable rage that erupted from behind him a second later jarred him back to the harsh reality. He shot back to his feet, readying his sword in case the thing attacked again, and suddenly got a good look at it for the first time. The absurd grotesqueness of the thing made his stomach churn; he had to actively force down a mouthful of bile at the sight. The thing looked like Jeff Goldblum from _The Fly_ had taken a break in mid-transformation to forcibly mate with a member of the Blue Man Group. As Rocky watched in morbid fascination, the thing curled its severed limb in towards its chest and moved slowly toward him, tapping its remaining tentacle on the concrete floor.

“Trini, get behind me,” he muttered under his breath. “This thing looks pissed.”

“You can tell what this thing’s _pissed_ face looks like?” Trini whispered, scurrying behind him. “It just looks hungry to me.”

That was when Rocky made a major mistake. As Trini crawled hurriedly across the floor, he followed her with his head to make sure she got behind him safely. It was only when she looked up and recoiled in shock that he whipped his head around in time to see the alien’s other clawed tentacle heading straight toward his face.

Grunting in surprise, Rocky dropped to one knee and caught the alien’s tentacle in both hands, just below the lump of flesh at the end, letting his sword clatter to the floor beside him; he thought he heard Trini grab it and pull it toward herself, its metal blade scraping along the concrete. The alien began to thrash violently in his grip, the tentacle whipping his upper body back and forth as he fought to keep it relatively still. Suddenly, the pull on the arm was abruptly released; Rocky didn’t even realize the tentacle had been severed until he was sitting on the floor, jaw rattling.

Trini stood over the disembodied limb, Rocky’s sword clasped in both her hands, her face and torso drenched in the alien’s thick, dark blood. Her usually serene features bore a look of terrifying anger; as Rocky got to his feet, she let out a breath and gingerly wiped a bit of blood off her forehead.

“I think you got him,” he said softly. She looked up at him and almost replied, but a sound from behind her drew both of their attention. Seemingly undeterred by the loss of two of its limbs, their attacker squared its shoulders and begun to advance on them, letting the bleeding stumps of its tentacles droop lifelessly by its sides. Not even looking shaky on its feet, the thing moved slowly but inexorably forward, fixing its glowing compound gaze on Rocky’s face.

“Fucker gets points for persistence,” Rocky muttered, lowering himself into a defensive posture. “Not winning any awards for intelligence, but nobody’s perfect.”

He had barely finished the sentence when the alien suddenly pulled back its tentacles and drew _another pair of arms_ out of two folds of skin on either side of its torso, unfolding them as if from nowhere. Unlike the other two limbs, these arms appeared identical to human arms, minus the bright blue tint; one of the hands clasped some kind of weapon, which the creature now raised to aim at Rocky’s face.

Without warning, the thing fired, illuminating the cramped space with a flash of green light. Rocky didn’t even have time to curse in shock; he dove forward, ducking under the ball of energy that erupted from the barrel of the creature’s weapon. The moment his hands hit the floor, he tucked his chin, pulled his knees into his chest and somersaulted toward the alien, concentrating on keeping his palms pressed flat on the floor. As soon as it felt like he wouldn’t be able to hold them down any longer, he pushed off the floor with both hands, shot his legs out and kicked the weapon out of the creature’s hands, sending it flying over Rocky’s head.

The creature reacted quickly – it grabbed one of Rocky’s ankles in midair and whipped him around, slamming his back into the wall hard enough to leave a crater six inches deep in the concrete. Dazed by the blow, Rocky was barely able to drop out of the way of the vicious punch the thing aimed at him; he felt the wall shake behind him with the force of the impact. Grunting with pain, Rocky got his feet under him and threw a fist straight up into the creature’s arm where the elbow would be, causing a very satisfying _snap_. The alien made another shriek of pain or anger and swung its other fist at him, but Rocky grabbed it, spun around, flipped the alien over his shoulder and brought the heel of his boot down hard on its exposed neck, his armored boot crushing flesh and shattering bone until the head was almost completely severed.

“And stay down, bitch,” Rocky said, tossing the alien’s limp arm back onto its body. He rolled his shoulders and turned to regroup with Trini, only to jump back at the sight of a second alien who stood only a few feet away and closing fast. Before he could even prepare for the attack, however, the alien’s head was enveloped by a ball of the same green energy that had been fired at him. When the ball had passed, the thing’s head was gone, as though it hadn’t ever had one.

As the dead alien crumpled to the floor next to its partner, Rocky turned and saw Trini, her clothes tattered and torn, her face coated almost savagely with the dark alien blood, holding the first alien’s smoking weapon in both hands.

“Thanks,” he said, gathering up his sword. She lowered the weapon and nodded, making no effort to wipe the blood off her face.

“You know all that crap I’m always saying about how we shouldn’t kill things all the time?” Trini said as they climbed out of the dugout and continued on. “How we should try to find nonlethal, even nonviolent solutions to the problems we’re trying to solve?”

“Yeah,” Rocky replied, demorphing as he spoke. Trini reached behind her and tucked the aliens’ weapon into the back of her pants.

“Yeah,” she continued. “About that. I’m full of shit.” Rocky raised an eyebrow and Trini smirked cynically in reply. “I say it’s time we got lethal.”


	8. Nothingtown

**“War is a series of catastrophes that result in victory.”  
** **-Albert Pike**

**SaveMart Supermarket  
** **Angel Grove, CA  
** **August 28, 2012  
** **7:20 PM PDT**

“Dude, I think we’re fucked.” Jason twisted around to glance at Tommy over his shoulder, both hands gripping the cool metal of the beam he straddled. From his vantage point twenty feet or so off the floor the Red Ranger had a perfect view of the group of creatures that had begun to file through the gaping hole in the grocery store’s front façade, probably looking for any humans hiding inside. “I count at least a dozen of them, it’s only a matter of time before they realize we’re here.”

“The cynical look does not suit you, bro,” Tommy replied, scanning the large, open space below them as he spoke. “Besides, look on the bright side – if they find us all on their own, it gives us an excuse to morph.”

“Gives _you_ an excuse to morph,” Jason corrected, jabbing a finger Tommy’s direction. “And I have no intention of hiding behind you like some shitty videogame AI character while you have all the fun.”

Tommy shot him a half-serious glare. “You keep bitching at me like that and I’ll push you off this beam.”

“I’m getting to a point where I’d prefer the damn aliens.”

“Again with the bitching. It’s funny how you think I’m kidding.”

Jason held up a hand. “OK, OK, Christ, just shut up already.” He paused for a moment and took in their surroundings again. Somewhere around ten or twelve of the grotesque, bright blue creatures milled around the enormous, warehouse-like room beneath them, not clustering very tightly together but not showing any signs of leaving, either. Jason blew a frustrated breath out through his nose. “Fuck it. They’re not going anywhere and my balls are getting sore. You found a landing spot yet?”

“How bout that pyramid of cereal boxes over there?” Tommy pointed to a spot on the floor about fifty feet to Jason’s right. The Red Ranger turned again to face his companion, eyebrows raised skeptically.

“You think we can make it that far across these beams?”

“I think _you_ can,” Tommy answered, adjusting his position to brace himself against the bar by his feet. “I won’t need to. I’ll have morphed and probably taken half of em out by the time you hit the floor.”

“Hold up there, Sundance,” Jason hissed before Tommy could do anything. “Before you go charging in there like an angry Joss Whedon character, maybe we could think of an idea that _doesn’t_ involve bringing every other one of these guys within three states down on our heads? Wasn’t that kind of the point of this from the start?”

Tommy just shrugged. “You know what they say about best-laid plans, Butch,” he replied nonchalantly. “Besides, if things go sideways, I’ll at least know you’re gonna be there to back me up.”

“Pretty sure that’s what Custer thought,” Jason muttered, rolling his eyes. “So much for doing this quietly.”

“Might wanna cover your eyes,” Tommy said, readying himself for the jump. Jason looped one leg over the beam at the knee, pushed himself up with his arms and got his feet under him. Gripping a nearby vertical beam for support, the Red Ranger rose to a stand and buried his eyes in the elbow of his free arm. Tommy took a couple deep breaths to calm his nerves and gently wrapped the fingers of one hand around the morpher at his back.

_Now or never._

“Hey, shitheads!” Just as he’d hoped, every disgusting head in the building whipped around to look directly at him. He cracked a half-smile and coiled his body. “Think fast!”

Driving his legs backwards, Tommy launched himself off the beam and into midair, simultaneously activating his morpher as he flipped forward like an Olympic diver. The blinding flash of pure white light filled the entire building with a flare so intense the aliens nearest to him let loose piercing shrieks of agony and rage. The instant the light cleared, Tommy’s rotation brought his body upright and he clapped his feet together, spearing his now-armored body directly into the face of the alien directly below him. He heard a gratifying crunch as he impacted the creature’s skull and kicked away, letting his target go sailing across the floor toward his advancing comrades. Flipping backward this time, Tommy landed with Saba already drawn and brought his arms up in front of his face in anticipation of an incoming attack.

If he’d thought he would have a chance to take stock of his opponents before they really knew what they were dealing with, the White Ranger had been dead wrong. They were on him almost instantly, completely ignoring their injured companion as every single creature in the building charged the newly arrived foe. Tommy’s only saving grace was the fact that the creatures had been relatively spread out when he dove in and thus didn’t all reach him at the same time.

The first one to reach him thrust one of its tentacle-like arms toward his face, the spines at the end clustered together into a single deadly spike. Tommy whipped Saba around in front of him, deflecting the spike off to his right, and dropped to one knee to dodge a punch aimed at the back of his head. Turning his eyes upward, taking a fraction of a second to analyze the humanoid-shaped arm for weaknesses, he caught a glimpse of a red blur that must have been Jason leaping across the beams in the ceiling, drawing the attention of several of their enemies as he did so. Chuckling to himself, Tommy balled his free hand into a fist and drove his elbow into the stomach – or what he thought was the stomach – of the creature behind him. The thing doubled over, and he simply swung his arm straight up and smashed his fist into the creature’s face, sending it staggering back.

Another creature approached from the front, raising a silvery object that looked like some kind of weapon. Not taking any chances, Tommy jumped straight up and spread his legs as wide as he could.

It was a good thing he had. A ball of what looked like pure blue-green energy appeared from the end of the weapon and shot by beneath him; with no time to turn and see where the projectile’s trajectory took it, he spun in midair and whipped his foot up, knocking the weapon free of the alien’s hands. As he landed, Tommy let his momentum carry him; bending backward at the knees, he let his feet slide across the smooth linoleum and swung his sword in a complete 360 degree arc. Two creatures who had been advancing in a pincer maneuver toppled to the floor in splashes of dark blood as their severed legs bounced off of shelving and walls and skittered across the ground. Tommy straightened and parried another tentacle swing just as another one came flying in straight down at his head. He just barely got Saba up in time to block, but instead of bouncing away this time the thing kept pushing down on his sword. The White Ranger spread his legs a bit to get more leverage, but just as he got a good base under himself he felt an arm wrap tightly around his neck from behind.

Grunting with exertion, even under his Ranger armor, Tommy let the tentacle in front of him push down more and more, his knees slowly folding toward the floor. Then, the alien before him thrust a spike directly toward his stomach.

Tommy’s eyes widened, and his morphing-enhanced reflexes took over. With Herculean effort, he shoved the tentacle up just hard enough to throw off its weight before launching himself head over heels. As he rotated, he kicked first one tentacle, then the other away, sending the alien they belonged to stumbling aside; halfway through his flip, he stuck out his free hand and planted it on the floor. The alien who still held on to his neck had been pulled into the rotation as well, and at the moment they were both completely vertical, Tommy yanked his legs free, tossed Saba into the air, wrenched his head to one side and caught the hilt of the sword between his outstretched feet.

“Saba! Now!” On Tommy’s command, the sentient sword fired its twin lasers directly into the ground; the thrust sent it – and Tommy’s feet – hurtling forward, the Ranger’s grip acting as a stabilizer to maintain a steady trajectory. At the last possible second, Tommy let go of the sword and pushed himself to one side with his plant hand, exposing the head of the alien behind him.

Saba plowed into the alien’s face with devastating force, its blade piercing skin, flesh, bone, and brain before the tip erupted from the other side, the hilt slamming to a stop at the front of the skull with the power of a speeding car, enough power to snap the alien’s neck by sheer torque. The grip on Tommy’s throat vanished instantaneously, and the White Ranger found himself flopping back to Earth on his ass.

“Ow,” he grumbled, working his way upright again.

Something caught his ear – some vibration, some minuscule disturbance in the air pressure around him – and Tommy hopped straight up in the air again, turning a 180 to land atop the spike that had been aimed at his legs. He stood there precariously, barely keeping his balance as the tentacle held him there. He cast a nervous glance into the face of the alien it belonged to and thought, for the slightest of moments, he saw a look that could have passed for a human smirk flit across the thing’s face. His peripheral vision caught what he thought was the tentacle contracting slightly, as though the muscles were flexing.

He had time to mutter, “Aw, shit.”

And then he was flying, the tentacle flinging him into the air, the tip cracking like a whip as it launched him across the store. Tommy felt himself crash through shelves, bouncing off of hard surfaces and sharp corners as he tore a trench through the room. Finally, his velocity slowed to the point that he couldn’t clear the next obstruction, and instead he slammed into it and slid across the top, tumbling off the other side and bouncing a couple of times across the floor until he came to rest against what looked like a huge crate full of watermelons.

Tommy’s head rang; he wasn’t seriously wounded anywhere in particular, but it seemed like every inch of his body was bruised. He coughed up and swallowed a hunk of mucus that tasted like blood and wrested himself up onto an elbow.

That was when two aliens appeared around the corner at the end of the aisle, less than ten feet away. One raised a tentacle spike, the other its silver weapon, and they slowly advanced toward him. Still unable to push himself to his feet, all Tommy could do was watch; he was trapped. Wounded. Unable to defend himself.

There was nowhere he could go.

Then he heard Jason’s voice.

* * *

**Angel Grove Park  
** **7:20 PM PDT**

Kat stared through the shimmering blue-green fence before her in shock, trying to calm down enough to take inventory of how many people in the cluster about twenty feet away she recognized and compare it to the full roster of Ranger family members that could potentially be captured for leverage. Tanya stood next to her, arms folded anxiously over her chest, helmet visor obscuring the impatient, concerned expression belied by the heavy breathing coming through Kat’s helmet radio.

“OK, so there are your parents and your sister, Kim’s parents and stepdad and brother, Trini’s parents, Tommy’s dad, Billy’s mom, Rocky’s parents and all…one, two, three, four of his siblings, Adam’s parents, Zack’s…” Kat paused and let out a shaky sigh. A shudder went through her as she imagined what that conversation would be like. She steeled herself and continued. “Zack’s parents and little brother. My family’s all in Australia, Aisha’s family is in Africa…who’s missing?”

Tanya cleared her throat and spoke in an unsteady voice. “I don’t see Tommy’s mom or Trini’s younger sister, I thought Adam had a grandfather who lived with him…” She scanned the group again before sighing and putting her hands on her hips. “Didn’t Billy say he had a cousin or an uncle or something coming to visit last week? I don’t see anybody else in there.”

“I don’t know,” Kat replied. “We’ll have to ask him. But first we have to get back to someplace where we can communicate and get the word out. Come on,” she gently pulled Tanya away from the fence and back toward the street. “Let’s get back on top of that tower. We’re totally exposed here anyway.”

The two of them managed to make it back to the base of the Comm tower without being spotted and used their morphing-enhanced strength to jump a good portion of the way toward the top and grab ahold of the metal structure. As they raised their communicators to their lips, Tanya suddenly looked up at Kat.

“Wait a minute. There’s no reason for us both to be here when there’s so much other shit to do. Why don’t you just teleport back and explain all this to Billy in person and I’ll head over to Zack’s house and find that coin.”

“You sure you’ll be all right on your own?” Kat asked. Tanya shrugged.

“We’ll have to find out.”

With that, she hopped back to the ground and jogged up the street, taking cover behind a small cluster of bushes as a pair of the grotesque aliens strode by. Kat opened her mouth to call her back, but, realizing it was too late, rolled her eyes and grunted in frustration instead. She gripped her communicator in her gloved fingers and squeezed the teleportation button, biting her lip contemplatively as the world around her dissolved into sparks of golden light.

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Main Chamber  
** **7:25 PM PDT**

Kat was running to the door from the Main Chamber to the Science Lab before she had even completely materialized at the Command Center. Yanking her helmet off and skidding around the corner of the L-shaped room, she grabbed a table to keep her balance and exclaimed breathlessly, “Billy! We found them!”

Billy jerked his head up from where he’d been bent over a piece of machinery. “Damn it, Kat, you scared the hell out of me!”

“Sorry,” Kat said, still trying to catch her breath. “We found them, Billy,” she said again, moving toward him. At his quizzical look, she added, “Our families! Tanya and I saw them – we think almost all of them – in some kind of makeshift prison camp the aliens set up in the park. There are only two or three people we think are missing.”

“They’ve been captured?” Billy asked solemnly. Kat licked her lips and gently set her helmet down on the table in front of her.

“Yes, they have, but…they’re _alive_ , Billy! I saw your mom down there, I’m sure of it, and I’m sure anyone else who was with her is in there somewhere.” She stopped suddenly as though realizing she’d forgotten something. “Didn’t you say you had another relative coming to town?”

Billy waved her off. “That was my uncle, but he went back to his place out in the country the day before yesterday. They’ve only attacked cities so far, so he isn’t in any immediate danger right now. What about your family?”

Kat grinned and held two fingers up with very little space between them. “Billy, my family lives in the middle of the fucking Outback and are this close to being full-on survivalists. I’m sure the Hillard Compound is doing just fine, for the moment. And Aisha’s parents are still in the middle of the Savannah, so I doubt these things will be interested in their location any time soon.”

Billy just nodded. “Good. That’s excellent. Hey!” He broke into an excited grin of his own and tossed his tools onto the tabletop. “I’ve got my own good news. I’ve fixed the teleportation unit so it should work through that radiation down there, and as soon as I install this,” he hefted the piece of equipment he’d been working on, all sharp glistening corners and webs of complicated circuitry and wiring, “we’ll be able to use our communicators on the ground as well.”

“Great!” Kat said, picking her helmet back up and tucking it under her arm as she followed Billy out of the Lab. “So how long do you think it’ll take to install?”

“Not long,” he replied, kicking a bundle of wires away to avoid stepping on it. “Especially now that I have help.”

“OK,” Kat said. She paused for a moment in the hallway to fully power down. “We should hurry. I hate leaving Tanya down there by herself and I need to get the word out.”

* * *

**SaveMart Supermarket  
** **7:20 PM PDT**

If he’d had the breath, Jason would’ve been letting loose a stream of violent curses; as it was, he was leaping frantically from one dangling crossbeam to another, the aliens that weren’t currently ganging up on Tommy sending a constant supply of energy blasts his way. The Red Ranger hit the next beam, wrenched his body sideways, and felt a wave of intense heat as a bright red ball of light zipped past his chest. He turned a full circle on the balls of his feet before his momentum forced him to jump for the next bar before he was ready; it quickly became apparent that he wasn’t going to clear the distance.

Jason had just enough time to grunt, “Fuck!” before he wrapped his outstretched fingers around the bar and swung forward. Knowing he had no time to slow down, he did what he prided himself on being good at: he went with it. Jason whipped his feet forward and released his grip, curling his body into a ball and flipping onto the pile of cereal boxes Tommy had pointed out earlier.

It was not the soft landing he had hoped for. The boxes directly beneath him cushioned the fall, sure, but as the pile collapsed, he felt corners jabbing into his ribs and stomach and, worst of all, his groin; still other boxes tumbled over on top of him, spilling their contents down the back of his shirt and blocking his view of his surroundings. But if being a Ranger had taught Jason anything, it was how to recover quickly. He sprang to his feet, shoved the obstructions out of his face, and drove his feet down onto anything that would hold them, climbing the avalanche of boxes to finally scramble on top of the shelf.

Jason took the tiniest fraction of a second to glance around; Tommy seemed to be doing all right for now, but who knew how long that would last. He turned and sprinted toward the far end of the long shelf, keeping Tommy in the corner of his eye. Suddenly, an alien popped up over the edge of the end of the shelf, as if by magic. Jason’s eyes went wide with surprise. _This is what I get for letting Tommy make the plan_ , he started to think as the creature brought up its weapon. Jason reacted on pure adrenalin-soaked instinct; he bent one knee, leaned back, and dropped into a baseball slide that took him just under the green ball that erupted from the tip of the alien gun. He had enough power behind him that the slide brought him all the way to the end of the shelf, his lead foot knocking the gun away before the rest of his body collided with the thing’s head. Jason felt the alien’s skull bounce off the opposite shelf with an immensely gratifying _crack_ as the two of them toppled to the floor. Somehow he managed to get his knee under him and land so that his kneecap dug into the creature’s chest where a human’s solar plexus would have been. The alien jerked a little, and Jason hopped to his feet and started kicking it in the face, over and over again, six hours’ worth of anger, sorrow and fear finally releasing themselves as his foot slammed into the alien’s head until, with a final grunt of rage, Jason brought his foot down so hard he felt it go all the way through to the floor. He lowered his piercing gaze to the still-twitching corpse, spat on it and muttered, “Welcome to Angel Grove, motherfucker.” He took one more moment to catch his breath and retrieve the alien’s weapon before turning and pulling himself back up on top of the shelves.

He started to scan the store for Tommy, but before he could look at much, he saw the White Ranger go flying across his field of vision, crashing through shelf after shelf before crashing into one within a few yards of him and careening to the floor. Jason rolled his eyes. _Typical. If we live through this I’m gonna kill him._

By the time Jason reached the end of the shelf, Tommy’s situation had gone from painful to downright fucked. Two aliens advanced on him, their backs to Jason, their weapons drawn, their tentacle-spikes raised. Jason saw Tommy start to slowly move to stand up and knew he had to step in. He ran his fingers over the strange weapon until he found the only moving part he could feel, figuring that had to be the trigger, and stepped up to the very edge of the shelf.

“Hey assholes!”

The aliens whipped their heads around to face him, but they never stood a chance. In one fluid motion, Jason swung the weapon in front of him in a sharp arc and fired twice. The green energy balls caught their targets square in the faces, leaving nothing but sizzling neck stumps behind. What Jason hadn’t counted on was that the deadly orbs didn’t stop there; they kept going, headed straight for Tommy. But before Jason could shout one word of warning, Tommy was moving, whipping his legs up and spinning on his shoulders like a breakdancer so that the two balls passed by on either side of him and disappeared into the far wall.

Jason smiled and hopped down from the shelf as Tommy got to his feet.

“What the hell took you so long?” The White Ranger asked as Jason moved toward him.

“What took me so long was your stupid fucking plan that nearly got both of us killed!” Jason retorted, walking right up to Tommy so that their chests touched. Normally, Jason was slightly taller, but in morphed form Tommy had a good four inches on him. “Now thank me for saving your dumb ass so we can get the hell out of here.”

After a long moment Tommy chuckled softly. “Thanks, bro. And sweet quick-draw back there.” Jason nodded and turned to walk away, and Tommy added to his back, “Although I would’ve gotten out of that on my own. In case you haven’t noticed, I killed a lot more of these freaks than you did.”

“Hey, quality over quantity, my friend,” Jason retorted, hefting the weapon. “Now come on. I’m finally armed again and the apocalypse is going by out there without us. Besides, I want to take down a few more of these assholes before I get my coin and make it too easy on myself.” He looked back at Tommy and grinned. “This is better than therapy.”

* * *

**Campbell/Hart Residence  
** **7:30 PM PDT**

Kim flung herself out of another doorway and tore around a corner, charging ahead into the next room and diving toward the slightly charred closet door in the far corner.

“Shit, shit, shit,” she muttered anxiously as she yanked the door open and began tossing things over her shoulder. The room suddenly shook from a crash that resonated from downstairs. “Fucking _shit_!” Kim managed to catch herself on the doorjamb and lowered herself to her knees, reaching for a folded quilt that lay buried beneath an assortment of other odds and ends on the closet floor. She tugged it out, hopped to her feet, and whipped it out in front of her. The quilt was a gift from her grandmother, who had sewn several dozen small pockets onto one side as an artistic touch. It was from one of these pockets that Kim’s Power Coin came tumbling out; she let the blanket fall, snatched up the coin and slammed it down in the center of the dormant morpher in her pocket, relishing the wave of power and renewed strength that shot through her body. In a flash of pink, she activated the morpher; at the same instant, another tremor rolled through her already nearly destroyed house. Her newly enhanced instincts leading the way, Kim hopped agilely to one side just as the far wall of the bedroom burst inward and one of the aliens charged her like an angry bull.

“Whoa!” Kim jumped out of the way and watched as the creature blew past her and crashed into the wall. “Didn’t you see the tie on the door?” Kim rolled her shoulders and took a second to remind herself of how good morphing felt. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. “God, that’s better than sex!”

By then, the alien had begun to stagger to its feet. Kim lowered herself to a fighting position and watched as it advanced toward her, whipping its tentacles out in front of itself.

“Come on, ugly, show me whatcha got!” She taunted, circling around it so the ruined wall was to her back. The thing pawed at the ground with one foot in a gesture that was almost territorial. Kim settled forward onto the balls of her feet and coiled her body like a spring. When the thing charged at her, all she had to do was twist her body to one side and handspring out of the way, and the blue monstrosity went barreling past her back into the hallway.

As she came upright, Kim’s eyes quickly locked back on to her foe, ready for it to turn and attack again.

Which was exactly when an already morphed Aisha shot around the corner in a blur of purple and slammed into the alien, driving it into the floor in a tackle that would’ve put some NFL linebackers to shame. All Kim had to do after that was stand back and enjoy the show as Aisha blocked a flurry of swipes from the creature’s spiked tentacles before finally catching one and spearing it into the floor. The alien yanked on it a few times, but the spike held tight. Aisha took advantage of the momentary distraction and moved in, grabbing the thing around the neck and shoving it back against the wall. She went to punch it in the head, but the alien managed to get one of its humanoid arms free, knock her arm away and wind up for a punch of its own. Aisha could easily have blocked it, but at the last second she appeared to come up with something better. She sidestepped the punch and threw the alien past her down the hallway. The creature went past its own trapped spike and skidded to a stop, still on its feet – but its tentacle was now pulled taut. Kim couldn’t see through the helmet, but she could picture the cocky half-smile that would be appearing on Aisha’s face. Before the alien even knew what was happening, Aisha leapt forward and ran up the length of the tentacle right up to the shoulder, turning in midair at the last second and putting all her power behind whipping her left foot forward into a kick that impacted the alien’s jaw so hard it lifted the entire head off of the neck, where it bounced off the opposite wall as Aisha flipped and twisted away, before finally settling at her feet. As the body collapsed, still twitching and spewing its thick, black blood, Aisha planted her foot on the disembodied head and finally spoke to Kim.

“This guy wasn’t bothering you or anything, was he?”

Kim shrugged. “Not so much. I had everything- _Sha! Get down!_ ” Aisha didn’t even pause; she dove to one side as the alien that had suddenly appeared behind her thrust a tentacle into the spot where her chest had just been. “Oh, hell no,” Kim muttered. “My turn.”

She sprinted forward and leapt from the ground, grabbing an exposed 2x4 with both hands and swinging into the air. She flipped once before uncurling her body and spreading her legs as far as they would go, aiming so that the center of her body was oriented just to the left of the alien’s head. As she reached it, Kim hooked her right knee around the alien’s exposed neck and let her momentum swing her around to its back, where she tightened her grip and brought the other leg up for extra power. Turning her gaze to the floor, Kim used her shoulders and hips to drive herself downward, hooking the alien’s chin with her knees and flipping it over backwards to slam it face first into the floor behind them. After that, all Kim had to do was push herself up onto her elbows, give her hips a quick twist to the side, and listen as the creature’s neck snapped.

As Kim excavated herself from the corpse, Aisha came over and offered her a hand up. The two of them took a moment to wipe some of the alien blood off of themselves before Adam came jogging up to them.

“Oh, good,” he said, slowing to a stop. “You two fucked some shit up, too. Now I don’t feel so bad. Kim, I hope your place was insured, I kind of got…dead alien on all your stuff.”

“No big,” she said, waving him off. “I always kinda hated this place anyway.”

“All right, then,” Aisha said. “Let’s get the hell out of here. I was pissed off and a little terrified before, but this is finally starting to get fun.”

* * *

**Kwan Residence  
** **Angel Grove, CA  
** **7:30 PM PDT**

Trini and Rocky skidded to a halt in the street in front of Trini’s house. Unaided by the added stamina provided by Rocky’s morpher, Trini bent forward and rested her hands on her knees to catch her breath; Rocky used the moment to scrape some of the caked-on alien blood off of his face and have a look around.

“Seems fairly quiet, all things considered.”

Still panting, Trini glanced up and tossed a few grimy strands of hair out of her eyes. “Why wouldn’t it be?” Her voice carried an edge that gave Rocky the sudden feeling of not quite knowing what to do with his hands. “There’s not much left around here to make any noise with.”

Rocky opened his mouth to reply before realizing he didn’t really have any idea what to say. The spot in front of them where Trini’s house had once been now held only a burnt-out husk of a structure – and he wondered if maybe even that was putting too bright a gloss on it. Tendrils of smoke still drifted up out of the ground around them; the sky had turned an ashy gray color, and it was impossible to even see the sun through the choking breeze of dust and smog and the smell of burning flesh. Every gust of wind made their eyes sting, the omnipresent smog ratcheted up the temperatures, and if they ever paused for long enough, the wind whooshing in their ears would no longer be loud enough to drown out the agonizing screams that seemed to echo from every direction. In his time as a Ranger Rocky had traveled to places still in the aftermath of catastrophes on a staggering scale; he’d seen entire cities, entire planets that had been reduced to smoldering ruins, nigh-apocalyptic wastelands that were almost as toxic as the disasters themselves. But now that he found himself on the other side of it, when it was _his_ planet that had been burnt to a crisp and _his_ family and neighbors who were screaming in the distance…he was worried that if he stopped moving long enough he wouldn’t be able to start again. He sighed and turned back to Trini.

“You ready?”

Trini flicked her eyes toward him and slowly straightened herself. Rocky tried to ignore the way she wiped at her eyes as she gazed at the ruins of her home. “I’m fine,” she said, the tremor in her voice belying her strong tone. “Let’s go.” She pushed past Rocky and strode purposefully toward the rubble. His arm shot out and grabbed her wrist as she went by.

“Trini, wait!” He tugged on her gently, but she yanked her hand free and kept going. Rocky jogged to catch up and stepped in front of her. “Hey! Are you sure you’re ready for this? You don’t know what you’re going to find in there – that could be your family under all that shit.”

She finally met his eyes, glaring icily at him. “No, that’s OK, no need to break that to me gently or anything.” He opened his mouth to reply and she stepped around him and swatted his hand away. “Shut the fuck up, Rocky, you’re not helping.”

Rocky grunted in frustration and spoke without turning to face her again. “What about the coin? Do you even know where it is?”

“No, you know oddly enough, all these charred pieces of my destroyed house kind of look the same,” Trini retorted. “I guess I’ll just have to start digging until-“ She stopped suddenly and Rocky turned to find her gingerly stepping across the bits of jagged rock, her arms thrown out to her sides for balance; strangely though, she wasn’t moving aimlessly. She seemed to know exactly where she was going.

“Trini?” Rocky said just as she stopped, squatted and picked something up. She rose to her feet and held it out in front of her.

“Or it’s right the hell in front of my face,” she said with a disbelieving laugh, staring at the coin in shock.

“How the fuck…?” Rocky strode across Trini’s ruined front yard, the dried-out grass crunching under his feet, and gaped at the coin in her hand. “How was it not buried under all that other shit?”

“I have no idea,” Trini replied, pulling out her empty morpher and pressing the coin into the middle of it. She felt the rush that signaled her reconnection to the Morphing Grid and grunted with satisfaction. “But it’s not a fake and we are in no position to be questioning this right now.”

Rocky glanced up at her. “OK. Your coin, your call. What about your family?”

Trini threw him an irritated look and sighed. “Nice, Rock. Way to fucking ruin the moment.” She peered sadly over the pile of debris where she had once lived. “I guess we ought to-“

That was when their communicators went off.

Rocky snapped his wrist up to his eyes in surprise. “I thought Billy said these things wouldn’t work at ground level.”

Trini nodded. “I saw the readouts. They shouldn’t.”

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Main Chamber  
** **7:30 PM PDT**

“OK, that should be the last one,” Billy grunted, slamming a final component into place. “Now we just have to restart the Communication Hub and-“

Before he could finish, Kat had already flipped a switch, and a stream of sparks erupted from one of the consoles. Kat staggered back, throwing her hands up over her face.

“Damn it, Kat!” Billy leapt to his feet and sprinted over to the now-smoking panel. He gingerly reached out for a few switches but yanked his hand back. “Shit!” Gripping his fingers in his opposite hand, Billy took a step back and sharply kicked the side of the console; a panel on the front popped open, and the young genius dropped to his knees in front of it and pounded on a large red button with his fist. The console went dark, the smoke ceased, and the soft hum the controls made became noticeably quieter. Billy rocked back onto his heels and sighed in frustration. “Son of a _bitch_ ,” he muttered under his breath.

“What the hell was that?” Kat asked softly from behind him. He stood and spoke over his shoulder, through clenched teeth.

“You flipped the switch too soon and the whole damn thing shorted out.” Billy let his hands fall to his sides and stepped angrily toward the machine. “Now we have to wait however long it takes for it to reset itself and-“

“Hello?”

Kat and Billy froze. Billy’s mouth worked its way around a word for several seconds before he finally spoke.

“Rocky?”

There was a pause. “Dude, you called us,” Rocky said, slowly, as if he were talking to a mental patient. “We’re at Trini’s place, or what’s…left of it, and we just found her power coin. What’s up?”

“I think the more important question,” Trini’s voice chimed in. “Is how you were able to contact us in the first place?”

Billy started to answer, but something in Trini’s voice made him hesitate. She sounded…strained. Like she was holding back a sob. “You OK, Trini?”

She brushed him off. “I’m fine, Billy. Answer the question. How’d you manage to call our communicators? I thought you said they wouldn’t work lower than thirty feet off the ground.”

“Kat and I just tried to install something to fix that,” Billy said, growing more confused by the second. “But it looked like the entire communication hub just shorted out. Even under normal conditions, there’s no way we should’ve been able to contact you. This doesn’t make any sense. Unless…” Billy sprinted to the opposite side of the chamber and turned a few knobs before slamming his fist down on the console in frustration. “Damn it. Teleportation’s still not reaching below thirty feet. I can’t even lock onto any of your locations and yet somehow your voices are coming through loud and clear.”

“I think I know how,” Kat piped up. Billy whipped around to find her kneeling in front of his newly installed equipment. Kat looked over shoulder at him. “It’s humming.”

“What?” Billy walked over and knelt beside her, examining his machine, which now seemed to be running all on its own. After a few moments’ examination, he sat back and spoke loud enough for Trini and Rocky to hear. “This thing was only meant to alter the frequency we broadcast on, but…somehow it’s working like a whole other communications hub all by itself.”

Kat frowned at him. “Billy, our communications hub is an incredibly complicated piece of machinery even for us – it takes up almost half of the control panels in the Command Center and as far as we know twenty percent of it runs on magic. No offense, but there’s no way you built an entirely new one at a quarter the size in only a couple hours.”

“Much as I love talking about Billy’s intellectual limitations,” Rocky said, “that doesn’t really answer anything.”

“I don’t have an answer for you, Rocky,” Billy said. “The only thing I can think of is that the signal was sent out when the short happened and that you two are the closest ones to the Command Center so that’s just where it defaulted to.”

“Can we contact the others with this?” Trini asked.

“Not sure yet, still treading new ground here,” Billy said, focusing intensely on his new component. “Maybe if I rerouted power through the other console and used those controls I could operate this one the same way.”

“You really think that would work?” Kat whispered. Billy stopped and glanced sidelong at her.

“Key words there are _treading new ground_ ,” Billy muttered before turning to face the tube that had remained strikingly silent up until now. “What do you think, Zordon?”

Zordon made a noise that could either have been a grunt or a sigh; sometimes his nonverbal communication was a bit hard to judge. “Very little information is available about our current situation, Billy,” he finally said. “It appears that the presence of these new invaders is the cause of a number of heretofore unexplainable occurrences. We cannot do anything more at this point aside from preparing ourselves as best we can to ride out the storm.”

“Well that was cryptic as ever,” Rocky grumbled. Billy rolled his eyes and rose to his feet, moving toward where the communications console had just begun to restart.

“And on that incredibly helpful note,” Billy said cheerfully, and severed the connection to Rocky’s communicator. “You still there, Trini?”

“Yes, Billy,” Trini said with an exasperated chuckle. “He hung up on you, Rocky, shut up. What is it, Billy?”

“Kat said she and Tanya found where our family members in town are being taken,” Billy said, glancing at Kat for confirmation. When she nodded, he went on. “They said they saw every family member they could think of, that everyone’s families were OK, at least the ones in Angel Grove. You guys should get to a high place and teleport back as soon as you can. Oh, and if you see the others, tell them too.”

Trini sighed with relief. “Thanks, Billy. See you soon.” She cut the connection and Billy turned back to the room.

“I guess we should try to contact everyone else-“ He was cut off when Kat strode up to him and slapped him, hard, across the face, the rough fabric of her glove scraping against his cheek. “Ow! The fuck was that for?!”

“That was for blaming me for the console shorting out and just generally being a dick.” Kat stepped back and crossed her arms. “You let me contact the others; I believe you have an autopsy to perform.”

“Fine,” Billy grumbled. He glared at Kat and pushed past her toward the door to the Med Bay, rubbing his cheek as he went.

* * *

Over the next few minutes, Kat sent the message out to everybody, and it was always the same. “We found our families, they’re all safe for now, get the coins and get back and we can figure out our next move.”

Kim, Aisha and Adam teleported back immediately; they never even had to leave Kim’s house. Tanya asked for a little more time – she hadn’t found Zack’s coin yet. Trini and Rocky still had to make their way back to the school, but soon they were back at the Command Center, too.

Jason never even heard the message. When their communicators went off, it was Tommy who answered, and he spoke from several yards away, gazing out at the devastation of the Scott home as he did so.

“You said you found everyone’s families?” He asked Kat, an uneasy feeling growing in the pit of his stomach. “Everyone? You’re sure?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Kat replied, suddenly sounding far less certain. “Why? What’s wrong?” Tommy watched with a mounting dread as Jason tossed aside another piece of debris – and froze, the color completely draining from his face. His friend’s knees started to tremble, and Tommy could’ve sworn he saw him mouth the word “No.” Then he looked up, and even after four years as a Ranger, the expression on Jason’s face was by far the worst thing Tommy Oliver had ever seen.

“Tommy! Help!” Jason screamed, his voice hoarse with agony and desperation as he dropped to the ground and began frantically digging through the rubble, sheer hopeless panic in his eyes. Tommy took one last moment to reply to Kat’s question; he spoke around a growing lump in the base of his throat, feeling the first hot tears begin to sting the corners of his eyes.

“Not everyone.”


	9. The Strength to Go On

**“I will not say, do not weep, for not all tears are an evil.”  
** **-J. R. R. Tolkien**

**Taylor Residence  
** **Angel Grove, CA  
** **August 28, 2012  
** **7:40 PM PDT**

Tanya slowed to a stop a few houses down from Zack’s, leaning over and bracing her hands on her knees as she caught her breath. The air still hung thick with ash and soot and dirt, and running in it for too long brought on a feeling of having just chain smoked an entire carton of unfiltered cigarettes; even someone in as good of shape as Tanya wasn’t entirely immune to it, especially without the air filter in her helmet. Brushing a few strands of hair away from her face, she straightened and took a few cautious paces toward the house she’d visited so many times before. The burnt grass and exposed soil crunched under her shoes, the gentle breeze hot against her exposed face. She made sure not to stay too far out in the open, keeping one eye on her nearest cover in case she had to hide quickly.

At first she wasn’t sure if she was hearing another set of footsteps or an echo. She froze in the middle of the driveway next door to Zack’s house, gingerly lowering her foot around a jagged piece of wood with a nail protruding from it as she scanned her surroundings for any sign of movement.

A flash of blue finally caught her eye. Tanya spun on her toes and ducked behind a surviving section of the thick privacy fence that had once lined the driveway, peering around the edge to try and assess her situation. As she watched, three of the aliens she and Kat had seen milling around the makeshift prison camp in the park strode up to the Taylor house and pushed their way one by one through the front door. Tanya closed her eyes and sighed with frustration.

“Shit,” she whispered to herself. She raised her communicator to her lips and spoke into it. “Billy, I know you can hear this so don’t respond, just listen. I’ve got three blue bitches going into Zack’s house; they’re probably after that coin. I’m gonna see if I can get it first. If I’m not back in an hour send help.” She killed the connection and muttered, “Or the coroner.” Tanya grabbed the piece of wood with the exposed nail and dared another look around the edge of the fence; when everything seemed clear, she took her chance.

Trying to keep as low as possible, Tanya crept around the edge of the fence and headed for the backyard, hugging what was left of the outside wall of the house. She did the best she could to limit her noise output, her calves burning from the effort of rolling her feet from heel to toe as smoothly as possible. About halfway down the wall, she glanced sidelong at the side of Zack’s house. The wall facing her was still mostly intact, a few scorch marks and the window frames empty of glass the only visible damage. As she watched, one of the windows on the lower floor was suddenly filled by the profile of one of the aliens, its grotesque blue head peering into the room it stood in as though searching it for something. Tanya stifled a gasp and dove forward, tucking into a roll and coming up running. A few frantic paces brought her to the outdoor air conditioning unit; she crouched behind it and pressed her back against the warm metal grating, trying to breathe as quietly as she could.

Several seconds had passed before she pivoted on the dirt and slowly leaned around the edge of the small structure, trying to get a view into Zack’s backyard. The Taylors had no fence around their yard – Tanya suddenly felt another wave of grief as she thought of the family’s dog, who they’d trained so well to stay near the house. She could see across the open spread of dead grass that one of the creatures was pacing the empty patio, its head darting from one direction to another.

_Shit. They’ve got one on guard duty._

Tanya set her improvised weapon to one side and hefted a clod of dirt from the loose soil she crouched on. She gripped it tightly in her fist and squeezed her eyes shut, letting a long breath out through her nose.

“Please god let this work,” she whispered. She pushed herself up, braced her left arm against the air conditioner, twisted at the waist and flung the hunk of dirt toward the creature standing guard. She ducked back down too quickly to see the impact, but she heard the gentle _smack_ it made when it impacted with the alien’s head. She grabbed the piece of wood with the exposed nail she had set aside and clutched it to her chest. It was taking every ounce of willpower she had right now not to just morph and have done with it. Rationally, she knew that if she did that she risked being overwhelmed too quickly even for a Ranger to deal with; that didn’t stop the part of her brain that still twitched when she walked under ladders from flashing the image of her morpher in her mind’s eye every time she paused to think.

 _This must be what a junkie feels like_ , she had time to think before the sound of the creature’s approaching footsteps began to grow closer. She heard the clicking of claws against the patio change to the crunch of feet on grass; there was a terrifying moment when the sound stopped, and she thought the thing had given up and was turning back. Then, finally, the steps resumed, the alien slowly moving toward her hiding place.

Tanya glanced at the ground beside her, where she could see the thing’s shadow growing larger, stretching out further along the ground as it drew near. Finally, she heard it tap its tentacle arm against the air conditioner. She would only have one shot at this.

The unit creaked as the thing leaned forward, and Tanya took her shot. She planted her feet, curled her fingers around the edge of the unit, and sprang upwards, hurling herself into the air. She threw her weight into her left hand and vaulted over the top of the unit, swinging the piece of wood with the nail in a wide arc as she sailed toward the creature.

At the last possible instant, she swung it forward viciously, watching as the nail buried itself in the creature’s forehead. Her momentum still carrying her, she lowered a shoulder and drove her body into the alien, sending it sprawling to the ground, where she gracefully somersaulted over its lifeless form and came up on her feet, hands raised to defend herself in case the other creatures had heard anything.

When five heartbeats had passed without any flashes of blue, Tanya let out the breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding, straightened, and tiptoed across the flat concrete slab that made up the Taylors’ patio. The back door to the house had been torn off; she noticed what might have been the remnants of it lying in a small pile off to her right. Tanya flattened her back against the wall and slid toward the opening, beads of sweat beginning to pool in the small of her back as she approached as silently as possible. Her gaze was laser-focused on the empty doorframe that led into the house; she half-expected an entire battalion of the disgusting invaders to come charging through it at any second.

After what seemed like an eternity, she finally reached the entrance and slowly curled her fingers around the edge of the doorjamb, doing everything she could to steel herself. Tanya let out a long, slow breath, tightened her grip on the edge of the doorframe and peered into the house. The room in front of her was the kitchen, a linoleum-floored area whose walls were covered with cabinets and now-useless appliances; an island in the middle held a sink and additional empty counter space. Beyond the island, the room opened into a living room, with a sofa and easy chairs aimed toward what had once been a TV stand; the far corner of that room had been demolished by something, a gaping hole leaving it totally exposed to the outside.

From her vantage point, Tanya could see three of the creatures milling about the large room, pulling out drawers and opening cabinets as though looking for something. One was pulling up the cushions on the furniture in the living room; another was examining the far side of the island, and the nearest one to her was engrossed in a cabinet on the near wall. She smiled to herself.

 _Good. They haven’t found it yet. Zack must’ve picked a really good hiding place. Atta boy._ Tanya’s position didn’t allow her to see further around the corner for risk of being spotted, so she coiled her body and decided she’d have to chance it. She couldn’t risk letting these things get away with her friend’s coin and do…god knows what with it.

Tanya bounced gently on the balls of her feet and counted down silently to herself.

_Three…two…one…NOW!!_

She leapt forward, using her grip on the doorway to throw her body into the room. She ignored the first alien completely; it had its back turned to her as she charged past it and leapt onto the island. The second alien didn’t even have a chance to look up before she was on it, driving a powerful kick into its face and sending it crashing backward to the floor, bouncing down the single step into the living room. Tanya let the momentum from her kick spin her around to face her second foe, who had turned to face her and was in the process of swinging one of its tentacle arms at her. Tanya hopped straight up and let the limb swing by under her feet; as she landed, the other tentacle swung up to meet her. She pivoted on the toes of both feet and leapt again, this time flipping forward over the tentacle, but this now put her back to her enemy; she remedied that by twisting to one side, driving her dominant right foot against the edge of island and jumping directly into the cabinets. Tanya brought her left foot up in front of her and used it to bounce herself off the cabinets and launch her body toward the blue creature before her. Before it had the chance to counter her, she drove her shoulder into its chest and the two of them toppled to the floor.

The silver-clad girl was on her feet quickly, and was just rearing her foot back for another kick when a glowing ball of turquoise energy zipped past her face and disappeared into the wall just behind her. Eyes widening in surprise, Tanya turned to behold the third alien advancing on her from the living room, weapon already drawn; suddenly there was a flash, and she dropped to the floor as another ball of energy went right through where her head had just been. At the same time she hit the deck, the alien who had been laying prone beside her rose to its feet and began to advance on her; Tanya saw over its shoulder that its companion had moved around the edge of the island to stand behind it, weapon raised.

She could’ve laughed at her luck. Instead, she waited for the lead creature to get right up next to her, watched carefully as it raised its twin tentacles, spikes prepared to impale her. At the last possible second, Tanya swung her legs back, planted both hands on the floor on either side of her head and launched herself from the floor, her feet connecting with the lead alien’s exposed chest. The force of her kick sent the creature flying back into its partner; there was a flash as the second creature’s weapon fired, but the impact had altered the shot’s trajectory. The flash receded to reveal the first alien’s corpse crumpling to the floor, a smoking semicircle carved out of its torso.

Tanya had landed right back on her feet; in the confusion caused by the disrupted shot, she reached for the knife block on the counter beside her and pulled out the biggest butcher knife she could find. By the time the armed alien had turned to regard her again, Tanya was already right next to it; as she sprinted by, she wrenched the arm holding the gun away from the creature’s body and severed the hand with a quick stroke of the knife. The creature’s thick, dark, syrupy blood poured out all over her, but she was already gone, charging down the corridor toward the staircase, casting the knife aside as she went. She heard powerful footsteps behind her, and quickly pried her new weapon out of the fingers of the severed extremity that still held it.

The staircase ran against the wall at the far end of the corridor she was now running down; two steps at the bottom led to a small landing that pivoted the climber into a sharp right turn. Tanya didn’t have the luxury of slowing down to make a turn that sharp. Instead, she leapt forward, planting one foot on the second step from the bottom and then launching herself into the air once again. Her foot found the wall opposite the main staircase and she pushed off of it, twisting her body in midair as she did so. The alien she’d disarmed was charging at her down the corridor; still in midair, she lifted the weapon and fired, taking off half the creature’s face as she flew toward the stairs.

Tanya landed off-balance and came down hard on her elbows and knees, the gun coming very close to slipping out of her hand. As she scrambled to her feet, the third alien from the kitchen came barreling around the corner and charged down the hallway toward her. Tanya turned and sprinted up the stairs, squeezing off a volley of shots in the creature’s general direction as she went. She heard it dive for cover, its claws and spikes clicking loudly against the artificial hardwood floor.

Panting, the Silver Ranger tucked the gun into her waistband and took the remaining stairs two at a time. The second she reached the top she grabbed the bannister and threw herself to the right, sprinting down the upstairs hallway toward Zack’s bedroom. She could hear the alien following her up the stairs, its large feet and long claws thumping and tearing into the wood and carpet.

Halfway down the corridor, the door in the wall to her left was flung open, and a fourth creature erupted into the hallway, already raising its gun. Tanya yelped in surprise and slammed herself into the opposite wall, and her new enemy’s shot went right past her and carried into the alien that had chased her up the stairs, punching a hole the size of a basketball in its torso. As it collapsed to the floor, Tanya dove past the new arrival, dodged another blast from its weapon and spun into Zack’s bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

She turned and regarded for a moment the room she found herself in; the first thing to catch her attention was the gaping hole in the far wall, an opening big enough to drive a car through gazing out over the backyard.

The second thing she noticed was the dresser that sat completely undamaged right next to the edge of the hole, a collection of seemingly random knickknacks strewn across its surface.

The third thing she noticed was the poster on the wall above the dresser, encased in a black frame and hung in the place of honor in the room.

There was a woolly mammoth on it.

Shaking her head and grinning at Zack’s sense of humor – mastodons and mammoths were so _not_ the same thing, as Zack had taken great pleasure in reminding everyone constantly – Tanya darted to the poster and lifted the bottom corner.

Behind the poster, a hole had been dug out of the wall. Tanya threw the entire poster aside ( _sorry Zack-man_ , she thought as she did so) and stuck three fingers into the hole. She smiled again.

“Gotcha.”

The Black Power Coin gleamed in her hand, the cool metal soothing on her hot skin. Tanya took a moment to admire it – and immediately wished she hadn’t. She jumped at the crash she heard as the creature in the hallway began banging on the door, trying to get in. On the third crash, cracks appeared. On the fourth, the center of the door began to bow inward. On the fifth, Tanya ran to the edge of the hole and jumped to the tree that had once come up to Zack’s window. She frantically climbed from one branch to another until she was high enough that she could swing to the roof. As she pulled herself to her feet, she saw the alien come charging right up to the edge of the hole; it looked around for a moment before hopping down to the ground – shaking off a twenty-five-plus foot fall as though it were nothing – and ran off in the direction it thought she would go.

Tanya sighed with relief and tucked the coin into her pocket. She found what appeared to be the highest point on Zack’s roof and keyed her communicator.

“Command Center, this is Tanya. Does anyone copy?”

“I’m here, Tanya.” It was Kat’s voice, but something was wrong… _off_ somehow. Tanya made a note to ask when she got back.

“Kat?” She asked, a touch confused. “Why am I talking to you and not Billy?”

“I sent Billy to the lab,” Kat replied, still sounding a little perturbed. “He has bigger things to deal with than manning communications. Alpha and I are still working on the teleporter. What do you need?”

“I’ve got the Black Coin,” Tanya said cheerfully, smiling softly at Kat’s interjection.

“Nice work.” Her voice didn’t contain one trace of enthusiasm.

“Why thank you,” she said happily, finally feeling a little bit more like herself. “Only problem is, I don’t know if his roof is high enough to get me a teleport signal. Can you check my altitude?”

“Yeah.” There it was again. Something was very wrong about how Kat was speaking, it was like…her eyes widened.

It was like she was trying to hold back some very, _very_ bad news. She shuddered a little, but then her voice came back. “You’re not gonna believe this, but you’re a foot and a half short.”

Tanya glanced around. “Wait, there’s a chimney! I could climb on that and get myself out of the radiation zone.” She paused as a thought occurred to her. “Does my entire body have to be out of it? Or just the communicator?”

Kat answered immediately. “Billy said the signal just needs to reach the communicator. If you can climb on top of the chimney and teleport back, hurry up and do it. And Tanya.”

 _Oh, no. No. NO!_ She was ten feet from going home and her best friend was going to try and break bad news to her through a watch speaker. “Yeah, Kat?” she replied, apprehension eating away at her stomach.

“You should be prepared for when you get back,” Kat said, sighing. Tanya could see Kat in her mind’s eye running a hand over her face, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I think we’re about to get some really bad news.”

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Main Chamber  
** **Somewhere Outside Angel Grove, CA  
** **7:55 PM PDT**

The first thing Tanya noticed upon reappearing in the Main Chamber was the quiet. The silence was so deafening, so oppressive, that she was almost afraid to move. She took a few nervous glances around the room and willed her feet to start moving softly forward, the whole thing reminding her absurdly of sneaking in through the backdoor when she came home after curfew.

Kat and Alpha were the only other people present; both of them were hunched over control consoles on different sides of the room, focused very intently on whatever it was they were doing. Tanya sidled up next to Kat and knocked softly on the side of the console with her knuckles.

The lithe Australian jerked as if she’d been punched. She turned and managed to fix Tanya in an indignant glare as what little color had ever been in her face began to come back. “Bloody hell, Tan!” Kat gasped, pressing a hand to her chest. “You scared the shit out of me!”

“Sorry, hon,” Tanya replied, trying to sound soothing but unable to hide the bewilderment in her voice. “But why’s it so quiet in here, anyway?” She suddenly realized something and shot a glance over her shoulder. “And where’s Zordon?”

“Alpha wouldn’t stop jabbering so I got Trini to help me mute him so I could concentrate,” Kat said sheepishly. “I didn’t trust myself to singlehandedly keep Billy’s new communications equipment running _and_ deal with Alpha’s running commentary on the teleportation unit at the same time.”

There was something else there. Tanya could see it, and, not for the first time today, she chafed a little at Kat for not sharing with her. For the sake of the job, though, Tanya swallowed that for now and jerked her head toward the empty tube. “And the floating head?”

Kat shrugged. “Who even knows anymore?” She tried to smile, but to Tanya her expression looked more like a grimace. Before she could make another attempt at prying, Kat craned her neck and peered around her; after a moment, Tanya realized she was looking at the reflection of Tanya’s back in Zordon’s tube. “Wait – what the hell is that?”

Tanya suddenly remembered the alien weapon she still carried tucked in the back of her pants. “Oh, this?” She tugged it free, being careful to keep her thumb from brushing against the trigger, and held it out in front of her; she wished she could twirl it around on her finger, the way Jason and Rocky always did with their Blade Blasters, but there was no trigger guard to hook her finger into and she didn’t want to set the thing off by mistake. Tanya settled for presenting the weapon to Kat like some sort of trophy – which, in a weird way, she supposed it was. “It’s some sort of gun those aliens carry around. I took it off one of the guys I found at Zack’s house.”

Kat’s initial reaction was an impressed nod; she followed that with a smirk and a gesture at Tanya’s filthy clothing. “Is that why you’re all…?”

Tanya glanced down at herself, her clothes soaked through and sticky with the alien blood, and smiled devilishly at her best friend. “Let’s just say the gun wasn’t the only thing I took off the guy.”

Kat’s grin widened. “Tan, I would love to stand here and tell you how many different ways that sentence kicks ass, but I really need to make sure this thing Billy built is compatible with the rest of the communications controls. Why don’t you take that gun to the lab and leave it for Billy to examine? I’m sure he’d appreciate the company; somehow I don’t think anybody else has been in there today.”

“Kat, your powers of intuition shock me to the core,” Tanya muttered sarcastically. Kat had already turned back to the console, but she had the presence of mind to give Tanya the finger without even turning to face her. Tanya snickered and made a move for the door that led to the lab.

Alpha chose that moment to suddenly have what appeared to be the robot’s equivalent of a seizure. He threw both arms up into the air and started running in circles in front of the teleportation unit, flailing wildly. Kat quickly dropped to her knees and flipped a switch at the base of Alpha’s torso; Tanya thought with amusement that if Alpha had been a human Kat would have just tickled his ass.

The return of Alpha’s voice was jarring; the once silent Main Chamber suddenly echoed with his high pitched wails. Tanya clapped her hands over her ears as Kat grabbed Alpha by the shoulders and gently shook him until he finally realized she was there.

“Alpha, what is it?” Kat asked, massaging her ears. “What’s wrong?”

Tanya had braced herself for the worst after what Kat had said before teleporting her in, but when Alpha spoke, his tone was one of unbridled joy. “Nothing is wrong, Katherine! I’ve recalibrated the teleportation unit so that it will now penetrate the radiation field that coats the planet! We should now have full teleportation capacity to any location within sensor range!”

“Alpha, that’s fantastic!” Kat beamed and threw her arms around the robot’s neck. “Finally, something goes right today.”

Tanya smiled from the doorway. “Congratulations, Alpha! You guys need any more help?”

Kat waved her off. “Thanks, Tan, but Jason and Tommy are the only ones who haven’t checked in yet. Take that gun to Billy, Alpha and I can handle this.”

Tanya came very close to protesting, but Kat and Alpha had already turned their backs on her to huddle over the teleportation unit. Sighing, she turned and jogged through the door toward the lab, cradling the strange weapon to her chest as she went.

She was standing outside the door to the lab when she remembered she’d never asked what Kat had meant by “bad news.” Tanya blew a frustrated breath out through her nose and gently bumped her forehead against the wall a couple times. That was the second time so far today that she’d let Kat off the hook about something she’d been promised answers about.

_Damn it. Billy’d better have something_ really _fucking good in there._

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Main Laboratory  
** **8:00 PM PDT**

At first, the door to the lab wouldn’t open all the way. Tanya gave it a gentle shove and felt rather than saw something heavy scrape across the floor on the other side. Grunting in frustration, she turned sideways and edged her way through the opening she’d been able to make. Billy’s startled voice greeted her as she forced her way in.

“Who is that?”

Tanya shoved aside the table that Billy had pushed against the door and glanced around the room. The lab was the picture of chaos, nowhere near the meticulously organized workspace that Billy took such pride in maintaining. Usually, every available space was in use, every table or experiment or piece of equipment arranged perfectly to maximize productivity; now, many of those things had been hurriedly shoved out of the way, the heavy desks and chairs and other apparatus pushed up against the walls in order to clear out a large open area in the center of the lab. In this newly freed space – roughly the size of a basketball court – Billy had assembled a makeshift barrier out of metal frames, projector screens and what appeared to be spare sheets from the bedrooms. The barrier encircled roughly a third of the open space; after another moment Tanya noticed the Intensive Care Unit from the Medical Bay sitting next to the barrier, its lid open. She stepped away from it instinctively and finally found the voice to answer Billy’s question.

“It’s Tanya, Billy.” She stood on her tiptoes and tried to peer over the top of the barrier. “What are you doing back there?”

Billy’s head suddenly popped out from behind one of the sheets. “I’m performing my autopsy,” he said somberly. His face was drawn, his eyes looking everywhere but directly at her. “Is there something wrong?”

Tanya gestured at the hastily constructed but effective wall which Billy was hiding behind. “What’s with the pillow fort?”

“Believe me, Tanya, you don’t want to see what I have back here.” Billy sighed and finally made eye contact with her. “You should be thanking me.”

Tanya wrinkled her nose at that. “That bad, huh?”

“Worse.”

“Haven’t you performed autopsies before?”

“Have you ever had to carefully dissect the mutilated body of one of your best friends?”

Tanya held up her hands, knowing the line when she was about to cross it. “OK, point taken.” She lowered her hands and Billy went to pull his head back behind the sheet when Tanya suddenly remembered the reason why she came in here in the first place. “Oh, hey!” Billy stopped and turned back to her and she pulled the weapon back out from behind her back. “I got this off one of those blue assholes. Kat said you’d want to take a look at it.”

“Kat was right,” Billy said, staring at the weapon excitedly. “Put it over there.” He brought a hand out from behind the screen to point and Tanya shuddered when she realized he was wearing rubber gloves that were now coated with blood. Billy didn’t notice; he was focused on the direction he was indicating. “Trini brought one of those back, too, it should be over there. I was hoping someone else would manage to get one so I could use it as a control.”

Tanya glanced toward where Billy was pointing, at a wall to the right of the door where a table had been moved underneath a sheet of pegboard where assorted tools hung. She moved gratefully toward it, seeing Billy move back behind the sheet as she turned away. An identical weapon to the one she held already lay on the table. Tanya gently set her own trophy down next to it and leaned on the edge of the tabletop, the exertion of the last few minutes finally catching up to her. Closing her eyes for a moment, relieved that none of the others could see her as she tried to catch her breath, Tanya willed her voice to work. “How about you? You find anything yet?”

“Several things, actually,” Billy replied. His head didn’t pop out of the barrier this time, and Tanya had a very fleeting – and very disturbing – mental image of Billy standing over Zack’s body with a determined look on his face and some kind of circular saw in his hands. Billy hesitated before continuing. “Are you sure you want to hear them? I had sort of hoped the next person I talked to would be Tommy or Jason.”

Tanya chuckled bitterly. “You know, six months ago I would never even have asked to begin with. I guess one of the side-effects of being a Ranger is an enhanced sense of morbid curiosity.”

“An interesting hypothesis,” Billy said. Tanya was quick to cut him off.

“I was joking, Billy. Stay on topic.”

“Right, yes.” Billy cleared his throat. “I suppose I should start with the obvious. Cause of death was a combination of head trauma and exsanguination, the former presumably caused by the collapse of the dormitory building.”

“Exsanguination?” For some reason the meaning if the word escaped her; the second the question left her mouth she realized that she wasn’t sure if she wanted to know.

“Excessive blood loss,” Billy explained. “And the most likely cause of _that_ is the damage done to the legs.”

Tanya had not failed to notice that Billy had deliberately avoided using a single pronoun during this entire conversation; her heart went out to him. Poor guy was probably using every bit of strength he had to keep going on this operation, and she had no doubt that he would never have suggested it if he hadn’t thought it absolutely essential. “Tell me about that. How were his – how were _the_ – legs severed so perfectly in such a straight line?”

“I wondered that myself,” Billy answered, either ignoring her slip of the tongue or failing to notice it. “At first I thought that whatever it was had cauterized the wounds, but then I discovered that the majority of the blood loss _came_ from those wounds. And there was no burnt skin anywhere around where the legs were severed.” He paused and took a breath. “It was in the investigation of that mystery that I discovered another.” Tanya heard a click, like a button being pressed, and a screen lit up on a nearby wall. It took a moment for her to realize what she was looking at: the screen displayed a simulated representation of the stumps of Zack’s legs, in three different views that were increasingly zoomed in. Billy went on without noticing the choking sound she made as she once again fought back the urge to throw up in her mouth.

“Upon closer inspection, I noticed that what had at first appeared to be perfectly straight lines of flesh had only seemed that way in our state of shock. In reality, the skin, flesh and even bone right around the point where the legs were severed appears to have undergone some form of extremely accelerated necrosis.”

“Sorry, Billy, I forgot my thesaurus today.”

“Apologies. Necrosis refers to the process by which body parts attached to a still-living organism begin to decompose as though they were dead.”

Tanya frowned. “You mean like gangrene? Cause it definitely don’t smell like almonds in here.”

She could practically hear the pleased smile in Billy’s voice. “In a way, yes. Necrosis literally involves cells dying within still-living tissue, and in the most extreme cases the tissue has to be removed. What happened here…there are a lot of technical steps that I won’t bore you with, but the gist of it is this: I think we’ve been using the wrong word to describe the nature of this injury.”

That got her attention. “Which word was wrong?”

To her surprise, Billy answered immediately. “ _Severed_. I don’t think Za- I don’t think _the_ legs were severed at all.”

She had no idea what to do with that. “Well how the hell else could you possibly describe it? The legs are no longer attached, are they?”

“No, but the word _severed_ implies that there are two disembodied legs lying around out there, not to mention a few fingers. I don’t think that’s what happened.” Billy paused, as though expecting Tanya to interrupt, but she was too confused to say anything. After a moment, he added, “Whatever it was that caused these wounds…whatever it did…I don’t think there are any legs left behind to find.”

Tanya finally started to understand where Billy was going with this. “So what Kim said about those green energy fields we saw, that’s what really happened, isn’t it?”

Billy took several seconds to respond. “I’m, uh…not entirely certain as to what you’re referring.”

“It was back in the Med Bay a few hours ago, when we first saw…the body. Somebody asked what happened to the legs and Kim said something about a green energy field thingy. You don’t remember that? You were right there.”

“Regretfully, I do not recall,” Billy said softly. He paused for a moment; Tanya could practically hear him thinking. “Though that would explain…” Billy’s voice suddenly trailed off and he poked his head back out from behind the sheet, his eyes widened with excitement. “This energy field Kimberly mentioned – you’ve seen it too?”

“Yes, Billy,” Tanya replied, fighting down an exasperated chuckle. “And so did you. Remember, on the street outside the Youth Center? Kat and Rocky were carrying you and Tommy and I had to tackle you out of the way?”

Billy frowned, but his expression was more one of disappointment at having missed key information than of shock at being reminded of a near-death experience. “All I remember is being tackled. I did hit my head during the initial attack on the Youth Center, so my memory is a tad fuzzy.” He paused, furrowing his brow in deep thought. “What did you observe about this energy field that you believe lends credence to Kim’s hypothesis?”

“Well most of what I know is based on what she told me,” Tanya began, wrapping her arms around herself. “But I didn’t see anything that didn’t fall in with what Kim said.” Billy nodded for her to continue. “According to Kim, that green energy-“ she stopped and frowned. “Actually, green may not be the right word, it was more like turquoise…maybe halfway between Adam’s uniform color and yours. Anyway, Kim said that the one she saw in Florida moved right through anything that wasn’t alive – wood, metal, concrete, sheetrock, it just phased right on through them without leaving a scratch. But the instant it touched living flesh…” Tanya shuddered and took a deep breath. “Kim said that one of the people she was with tried to touch the thing and it just…” Tanya struggled to find the right word. “His hand just _disintegrated_. Every part of his body the energy touched just dissolved into ash until there was nothing left.” A shiver went through her as she remembered the last part. “And it wasn’t quick or easy, either; Kim didn’t have time to see more than a glimpse of the guy’s face, but from what she told me it sounds like he was in an ungodly amount of pain. She said it was like nothing she’d ever seen before.” Tanya finally looked up and made eye contact with Billy, who’d grown several shades paler despite his impassive expression. “And Kim’s seen everything.”

Billy managed a small smile. “Well, I wouldn’t say _everything_.” He ducked his head back behind the barrier and pulled the sheet back into place. “And that actually makes a lot of sense. The reason why the termination of the limbs is so perfect is because that’s the extent of where the barrier reached before it dissipated – these energy fields do eventually dissipate, correct?”

Tanya nodded for a moment before realizing Billy couldn’t see her. “Yeah,” she said shakily. “I don’t know how far out it expands from the original impact site, but after the initial shockwave, the energy only affects people. The one that I saw went right past cars, lampposts and the concrete in the street like it was nothing and then just stopped less than an inch from my face. I could feel the heat coming off of it and everything.”

Billy didn’t say anything for a few moments. Tanya figured he was trying to assimilate what she had said with what he’d already learned. “What about the creatures’ handheld weapons?” He finally asked; Tanya wasn’t sure if he was making a connection or just wanted to change the subject. “Did they appear to work in a similar fashion?”

“Well,” Tanya began, glancing at the matching pair of silver weapons on the table beside her. “I think the firing mechanism is kind of like the guns they give you when you play laser tag. You know, where the trigger is on the back of the barrel and you fire it with your thumb? It can fire about as fast as you can press the trigger; I don’t know if they have an automatic setting, I never tried holding the button down to see what would happen.”

“What about the actual ammunition the weapon fires?” Billy’s words were accentuated by the scraping of his shoes on the concrete floor; Tanya could picture him pacing, one of his hands probably rubbing his face as he tried to put everything together. She took a moment before answering and went back through the encounter in Zack’s house in her head.

“There are at least two different kinds of ammo, as far as I could see,” Tanya said. “And they behave in pretty much the same way as the bigger ones that come off the ships. There’s a red one that plows through anything in front of it and bounces around like a superball until it runs out of speed; and then there’s a greenish-blue one that…” her eyes widened. “Oh my god, Billy. The stuff that comes out of the weapons is the same stuff the ships are using!”

She heard him chuckle triumphantly behind the barrier. “I figured as much.” Tanya heard what sounded like tools clattering together. “This is an excellent discovery, Tanya. If I can determine how the handheld weapons work, I can figure out how the ships’ weapons work as well. Hopefully that will enable us to take down these creatures’ entire weapons capabilities in one fell swoop.”

“That’s great, Billy. So where do we start?”

“Um, actually…” Billy chuckled again. “That testing may have to wait for a little while. I’m, uh…I’m kind of on pause in here. I wasn’t expecting to have this conversation right now, I built this barrier so that if anyone came in I could shuffle them around and get them back out without them seeing what I was doing; I still have to finish this up.”

“But Billy, if there’s nothing else you can learn from-“

“Damn it, Tanya, this is _Zack!_ ” Billy nearly shouted. Tanya flinched at the sudden harshness of his voice. This was the first time she’d heard Billy use his name. “I’m not just gonna leave him lying on this table with his ribcage pulled open and his brain exposed!” There was a loud crash, and Tanya saw a few small tools come tumbling out from under the barrier. When Billy spoke again, his voice was softer, but he seemed out of breath from the sudden outburst. “Don’t think I didn’t see the looks on everyone’s faces when I broke the news. Don’t think I don’t know that Jason is probably driving himself crazy with what-ifs and the thousands of different scenarios where he could have somehow kept him alive. Don’t think I haven’t seen in my head a hundred times the way his parents are gonna look at us when we…when I…god, Tanya, they didn’t even _know_!” Billy suddenly pulled the sheet back and stepped fully out of the barrier. Tanya could see that he was wearing surgical scrubs that were splashed with blood, just as his gloves were. He staggered toward her and leaned against a table near the door, leaving bloody smears wherever his hand touched. “His own family didn’t know a damn thing about what he’d been doing for the last four years and now they’re only going to find out because he got killed doing it. And we’re gonna have to show them what’s…” Billy let out a long, slow breath. “What’s _left_ of him.”

Tanya was so stunned by Billy’s sudden display of emotion that she didn’t know what to say. Finally, after a long moment of uncomfortable silence, the genius turned and shrugged his way back behind the barrier. “Just do me a favor and leave me alone for a minute, would you? I need to finish putting the body back together as best I can. I owe him that much.”

She gently pushed herself away from the table with the two guns on it and moved toward the door as Billy spoke up one more time.

“If you happen to see Tommy or Jason, please tell them what we’ve talked about. If you don’t think you can explain it all, send them in here but please ask them to knock first, it’ll still be a little while before I’m completely finished.”

“Sure, Billy, no problem,” Tanya said as calmly as she could. She grabbed the door and swung it open, gasping a little in surprise as the hallway came into view. Kat was standing in front of the door, her arm raised as though she was reaching for the handle. Her cheeks were flushed and she seemed slightly out of breath – but the thing that threw Tanya off the most was how red and puffy her eyes looked, as though she’d just gotten done crying. The lithe Australian stared at her in confusion.

“Tan? What are you doing here?”

Tanya cocked her head at her. “I came in here to give Billy that gun. You know, the one I came back with? Seriously, are Tommy’s memory problems starting to rub off on you people?”

Kat didn’t laugh or even smile. Instead she just asked, “Is Billy still in there?”

A sarcastic retort died on Tanya’s tongue. “Yeah, he’s in there. Why?”

Kat grabbed the front of Tanya’s shirt and pulled her bodily across the threshold of the room, yanking the door shut behind her. “We have to keep him in the lab for as long as we can. He can’t know about what’s going on.”

“Can _I_ know about what’s going on?”

Her friend sighed and gripped her shoulders with both hands. She took several breaths before she was able to speak again. “Um…remember when I told you I thought we were about to get some bad news?” All Tanya could do was nod. “Well, we just got it.” Kat sniffled and closed her eyes, as if afraid to look Tanya in the eye. “And this…this _redefines_ bad news.”

* * *

**Scott Residence  
** **7:40 PM PDT**

“Tommy? Tommy, what are you talking about?” Kat’s concerned voice squawked unheard from Tommy’s communicator as he sprinted toward Jason, who was still frantically tossing aside pieces of debris from the ruins of his house. “Tommy, come on, say something, you’re scaring me!”

“Not now,” he said quickly before severing the connection. He finally reached where Jason was standing and held out a hand to try and calm him down. Jason didn’t even pause before shoving Tommy’s hand aside and pushing past him to grab another piece of debris and throw it away. The Red Ranger’s jaw was set hard, the veins in his neck standing out; beads of sweat glistened on the rapidly paling skin of his forehead. “Jason, Jase, buddy, hey, come on…” Tommy made another attempt to move closer, to try and get the other man to talk to him, but Jason flinched away and shoved him hard enough for Tommy to turn around and finally behold what it was that had his friend so worked up.

“Oh, no. Oh, _Christ_ , no.”

At one point in his Ranger career, Tommy had thought that the things he and his friends were forced to deal with on almost a daily basis had prepared them for anything, that they had become hardened, jaded and cynical enough to brush off even the worst of what the world thrust in front of them with only a temporary healing period. They were still human, yes; they still grieved, they still felt the pain of loss and bitter ache of failure and regret. They could still feel all the things that made them good people; but he’d thought there for a while that they were done being sucker punched by those feelings, that nothing they were presented with could threaten to snap their very sanity by sheer emotional trauma anymore.

Zack’s death had finally made him question that thought.

The sight laid out before him all but obliterated it.

Jason’s mother stared back at Tommy from beneath a massive pile of blackened rubble. Most of her body was still covered, but Caroline Scott’s blank, lifeless eyes, the mottled blue color of her skin and the thin trickle of blood that still hung from one corner of her mouth told Tommy everything he needed to know. The White Ranger’s breath caught in his throat; he squeezed his eyes shut, blinking futilely against the tears that sprang up behind his eyelids. His knees suddenly felt weak, his stomach leaping into his throat. It was only through sheer willpower that he was able to stop himself from dropping to his knees and throwing up right there on the spot.

_No,_ he told himself urgently. _Can’t do this now, you have to get Jason out of here before he hurts himself. You don’t get to be the weak one right now._

God, how he wished that part of his brain – a part of him that Jason was more than a little responsible for – didn’t make so much damn sense. Tommy allowed himself only a couple more deep breaths, trying to slow his heartrate, and let his eyes run their way over the grisly sight one more time, almost ashamed of how detached and clinical he could force himself to be. Mrs. Scott appeared to be lying on her right side, her face at one end of the pile of debris. Tommy realized with another wave of nausea that he could just see the toes of her shoes poking out from the other end. Jason was uncovering her from the head down; Tommy realized he could see the burnt fabric of the light blue shirt she was wearing. Suddenly his eyes landed on a 2x4 that stuck straight out from the pile. The thought that flashed through his mind was terrible, disgusting, unforgivable – but he owed it to Jason, to his family, to follow through on it.

Stepping hesitantly forward, Tommy took hold of the protruding 2x4 and gently shook it up and down, noting with grim resignation the way Mrs. Scott’s body moved with it. He stepped back and ran a hand over his face, letting his head fall forward.

_I’m sorry, Jase. Please don’t hate me for this._

Tommy steeled himself and approached Jason again, with much more purpose this time. He was well aware of the lion’s den he was walking into, but he’d be damned if he let his best friend see what he knew to be waiting for him under that rubble.

Jason was in the process of reaching for another piece of debris, one that would have revealed the upper portion of his mother’s chest, when Tommy got to him. He grabbed his best friend by both shoulders and yanked him away, using the element of surprise to maneuver himself in front of Jason and block his way back.

“Jason, stop,” he said softly but firmly, gripping Jason’s shoulders as tightly as he could. Jason struggled against his hold, craning his neck to look back over Tommy’s head at the pile of debris that covered his mother’s body. His eyes were frantic and refused to meet Tommy’s gaze.

“I have to get back to her, I…” Jason’s tone was insistent, but his voice was shaky, desperate, like a weakening dam about to burst. The wet shine in his eyes made Tommy’s heart hurt. “I have to get her out of there, I can help her…”

“ _Jason!_ ” Tommy all but screamed at him this time. Jason’s eyes finally met his, and Tommy had to stop himself from flinching at the terrified plea he saw in them. _Time to rip off the Band-Aid._ “There’s nothing you can do.” Jason opened his mouth to protest but Tommy plowed ahead before he lost his nerve. “ _Hey._ ” He gave Jason’s shoulders a shake, trying to jar him into understanding. “She’s gone, Jase. There’s nothing you can do.”

Jason looked like he wanted to fight him again; his mouth worked soundlessly around words of protest that dissolved on his tongue. Finally he just shook his head, his lower lip starting to quiver. “No. No, no, please god no…”

The lump in Tommy’s throat was so big he could hardly breathe around it. “I’m sorry, Jase,” he said, his voice breaking. “God, I’m so sorry, but she’s gone.”

The finality of Tommy’s statement hit Jason like a sledgehammer. He doubled over as though in physical pain, collapsed to his knees and then fell forward onto all fours, vomiting into the dirt. Tommy was just barely able to avoid having his best friend’s sick splashed on him. He quickly knelt beside him in the ruins of his destroyed home and gently rubbed his friend’s back while he coughed and retched in the acrid air.

After a moment, Jason finally stopped dry heaving and rocked back onto his knees, staring sullenly into the dirt as he tried to catch his breath. Tommy started to lean toward him, intending to wrap an arm around Jason’s shoulders, when Jason dug his fists into the dirt, threw his head back and screamed, an inarticulate and terrifying roar of agony that echoed off the still-smoking ruins of everything that had once been home.

When it sounded like his throat was being worn raw from screaming, Jason finally stopped and brought a fist up to his mouth. Tommy didn’t hesitate any longer, throwing his arm around Jason’s shoulders and squeezing the other boy against his body.

“I’m so sorry, Jase,” he whispered, not knowing what else to do. Jason shuddered beside him, and Tommy could tell from his breathing and the look on his face that his best friend – his brother – was still doing his damnedest not to cry. He opened his mouth to try to say something else – anything else – that could make some of this easier, but realized with a twinge of guilt that he was at a total loss.

“ _Jason?_ ”

The voice came from behind them; Tommy was on his feet and striking a defensive stance faster than he could blink. He felt more than saw Jason do the same beside him, any trace of pain erased from his face. The world had gone deathly silent, the only sound his own heartbeat in his ears as he regarded the source of the new voice.

A man was slowly walking toward them, squinting against the dirty air. He was about Tommy’s height, looked to be in roughly his late forties, and wore a tattered blue button down shirt that was still halfway tucked into a filthy pair of jeans.

And he was the spitting image of Jason.

 _Or, more accurately_ , Tommy had time to think as Jason lowered his fists beside him, _Jason is the spitting image of_ him.

Jason took a shaky step toward the new arrival, eyes widening in shock.

“Dad?”

Tommy slowly relaxed his posture as Rick Scott approached them, picking his way across the jagged piles of debris as he gaped at his son. Jason stood rooted to the spot for a moment, as if not believing what he was seeing.

He didn’t need long to convince himself. Jason’s father hadn’t covered half the distance between them when his son took off, charging toward his father and throwing his arms around his neck. Jason slammed into his father so hard they both staggered back a couple steps before regaining their balance. Mr. Scott dug the fingers of one hand into the back of Jason’s shirt; the other hand cradled the back of his head, his eyes squeezed shut with the intensity of his relief. Even from behind, Tommy could tell when Jason buried his face in his father’s shoulder. After a long moment, the two men separated, holding each other at arm’s length.

“How…” Mr. Scott stared into his son’s face, bringing a hand up to cup the side of his neck. “How are you even here? I thought you were in Switzerland.”

Jason blinked a couple times as Tommy approached them. “OK, um…” he licked his lips, glancing sidelong at Tommy, who just nodded. “This is gonna sound crazy, but-“

Mr. Scott suddenly interrupted him. “Does it have something to do with this?” He reached into his pocket and held out Jason’s power coin, the gold glinting in the dull light of the setting sun. Jason looked from the coin to his father’s face and back before slowly closing his hand around the coin. Tommy saw his friend’s entire countenance relax as the power rushed back into him; Jason closed his eyes and blew a long breath out through his nose. Mr. Scott nodded. “I’ll take that as a yes. I found that thing just sitting on top of a pile of stuff where your room used to be, like someone came by and just set it there.” He frowned a little, and suddenly Tommy realized how red and puffy his face looked; he had a sinking feeling there was more bad news headed Jason’s way. “What is that thing anyway?”

Jason squeezed the coin in his fist before letting his other hand drop to the small of his back. If this had been any other day, in any other world, the look on Mr. Scott’s face as Jason brought his morpher out from behind his back would’ve made Tommy burst out laughing. Today, the most he could manage was a sad smile. Jason gently clicked the coin back into place in the center of the morpher and returned it to the small of his back before meeting his father’s eyes again. “Dad, I’m a Power Ranger.”

To Tommy’s surprise, Jason’s blunt statement seemed to trigger some kind of epiphany for Mr. Scott. The older man cracked a small smile and nodded, but didn’t say anything. Jason studied his father’s face before speaking again. “When all this shit started going down we all came back here to check up on everybody. It took longer than we wanted cause pretty much all of us were hurt, and one…” he shook his head and brushed that aside for the moment. “We got down here as soon as we could, but…” his voice trailed off and Tommy saw his eyes begin to moisten again. “God, Dad, I saw Mom and she-“

“Shh,” Mr. Scott wrapped his arm around Jason’s neck and pulled him close again, letting his son cling to him like a life preserver. “I know, pal. I know.” He kissed the top of Jason’s head and gently rubbed a hand up and down his back. “I’m so sorry, I had hoped we were the only ones that got hit with this and that you would never have to see…” he trailed off, his voice breaking a little, and Tommy suddenly noticed the cut above Mr. Scott’s eye, the trail of blood that ran down the side of his face. The lower half of one leg of his pants was soaked through with blood as well, the fabric clinging to his leg. Jason lifted his head and looked his father in the eye again.

“Wait, what about Sean and Nathan? Are they with you, too? Where are they?” Sean and Nathan were Jason’s younger brothers; Sean was twelve, Nathan was fifteen, and both of them idolized their brother.

Jason’s father blinked rapidly against a fresh wave of tears and slowly shook his head. It took him far too long to find his voice, and Tommy’s palms began to sweat, a feeling of dread seeping into the pit of his stomach. “No, they’re not with me. I didn’t get here until after the fact, I was already at work when everything started happening. It took me hours to get back here, and by then there was nothing I could do.”

Jason gripped his father’s shoulder harder. Tommy could see his knuckles turning white but if Mr. Scott felt any discomfort he didn’t show it. “So you don’t know where they are?” Jason’s voice was achingly hopeful, and Tommy knew then that Jason was fully aware of what his father was about to say and was begging to be proven wrong; but Jason’s leader instincts were too finely honed for his own good. Mr. Scott glanced over at a spot just over Tommy’s shoulder.

“I found them over there.” For just five simple words, it was amazing the amount of pain they could carry with them. “There wasn’t…” he took a shuddering breath. “There wasn’t a whole lot left, but I could tell they’d been together when…”

Jason moved to push past him toward where he’d looked and, in a display of strength that left Tommy stunned, Mr. Scott bodily pulled him back and held him in place. “Jason, don’t. Hey, look at me.” His voice had taken on the firm edge of a father used to evenhanded discipline. Jason met his eye, looking about ready to burst into tears. “You will not go over there. I don’t care what you are or what you’ve done, I will die before I let you see what’s over there. Do you understand me?”

Jason didn’t say a word. He just slumped forward, buried his face in his father’s shoulder and finally allowed himself to cry.

Having his suspicions confirmed was the last straw; Tommy couldn’t watch this anymore. He rubbed a hand over his own eyes and turned to walk away when he felt a tug on his shirt. Tommy stopped and turned back around to stare his best friend’s father dead in the eye; Mr. Scott held Jason against him with one arm and put a vice grip on Tommy’s shoulder with the other.

Tommy struggled for words. “Mr. Scott, I…”

“It’s OK, Tommy,” Mr. Scott said with a sad smile, squeezing Tommy’ shoulder again. “So, are you…?”

Tommy knew exactly what he was talking about. He reached behind him, unclipped the morpher from his belt, and held it out for Jason’s father to see. Mr. Scott’s smile grew a little wider.

“I should’ve known,” he said softly, shaking his head. His face suddenly became serious. “Jason was saying something about how everyone was hurt and then he just stopped, would I be right in thinking one of the Rangers didn’t…” Tommy sighed and nodded, reluctant to burden the man further. “Who was it?”

“Mr. Scott, I don’t want to dump anything else on you right now-“

“Tough shit, Oliver,” Mr. Scott said gently but firmly. He tightened his grip to demonstrate his point. Tommy chuckled softly.

“You say that just like he does.” Mr. Scott grinned proudly at that.

“That’s my boy,” he said in a voice so low it was almost a whisper. Jason gave no indication that he’d heard anything they’d said. “But don’t change the subject. Tell me who.”

Tommy swallowed hard. “The Black Ranger.” He met Mr. Scott’s sympathetic eye again. “Zack Taylor.”

The older man winced. “Oh, god. I’m sorry.” Tommy nodded, glancing nervously at Jason. Mr. Scott didn’t miss it. “Don’t worry about him, he’ll be OK. He’s a tough kid, strong as they come. Gets that from his old man.” His voice took on a tone of obvious pride that made Tommy smile despite everything.

“We take care of each other,” he said with a little more conviction. “Him and me especially.” Tommy crossed his arms over his chest. “Your son has saved my life more times than I can count, Mr. Scott. In fact, you could say he’s the reason I’m a Ranger right now in the first place.”

Jason’s father narrowed his eyes in confusion. Tommy gestured at Jason. “Jason was one of the first five Rangers. Care to guess which color?”

Mr. Scott smiled again. “He’s always had a thing for red.”

Tommy gestured at himself. “And I’m the White Ranger now, but when I first came to town a few years ago, I was…” he paused and swallowed again, the dirty air drying out his throat. “I wore a lot of green.”

The older man’s eyes slowly widened with realization. The story of the first Green Ranger was legendary in Angel Grove; no one who’d lived through those two weeks of terror would ever forget it. Tommy knew that better than anyone. “So you were…” Tommy nodded and Mr. Scott turned to his son. “And he…”

“Yeah,” Tommy said, staring at his best friend. He made eye contact with Mr. Scott. “He saved me. And then he just turned around and offered me a spot on the team, like that whole first two weeks never happened, like he’d known me forever.” He shook his head as he remembered it again. “And he’s never once doubted me since. I mean we argue and everything, you know, that’s what happens when the team has two leaders, but at the end of the day…”

Mr. Scott cut him off. “You don’t have to say anything else. I know how highly you two think of each other.” He finally took his hand off of Tommy’s shoulder and gently rubbed the back of Jason’s neck with it. “So does that mean the rest of you are…”

Tommy grinned. “Think of a list of Jason’s closest friends. That’s a good place to start.”

“I figured as much.” Mr. Scott pressed his cheek against the side of Jason’s head. “He’s lucky to have friends like all of you.”

“We’re luckier to have him,” Tommy replied without hesitation. Mr. Scott raised his eyebrows. “He’s like the big brother none of us ever had.”

“OK, you two need to stop before I puke on both of you,” Jason said, finally straightening and wiping his eyes. “Besides, we need to get out of here; we don’t know if those things are gonna be back here anytime soon.” He glanced at Tommy. “Billy ever get the communicators working again?”

“Communication, yes. Teleportation, no,” Tommy said. “You OK, Jase?”

“Not really,” Jason replied, rolling his shoulders. “I’ll be better once we’ve kicked these fuckers off our planet.”

Mr. Scott smiled and clapped his son on the shoulder. “You know, twelve hours ago I would’ve chewed you out for talking like that.”

Jason smiled himself. “Yeah, but you wouldn’t have meant it. I got the impression you only ever did that for Mom’s sake.”

“I did.” Mr. Scott reached out and tousled his son’s hair. Jason turned back to Tommy.

“What’d I miss?”

“How long were you paying attention?”

“Something about how I’ve saved your life more times than you can count? Jesus, Tommy, if you cared that much, why didn’t you just start a fan club or something?”

“You know, when I was talking you up to your dad, I should’ve mentioned your incredible modesty.”

Mr. Scott couldn’t resist. “That, he definitely didn’t get from me.” The three of them exchanged a much needed laugh at that before Jason turned back to Tommy.

“So we still need to get thirty feet off the ground to teleport?” The White Ranger nodded. Jason stepped back from his father and wiped his eyes again, already slipping back into leader mode. “OK, well, we can’t go back to the grocery store, where else is there that’s nearby?”

Tommy’s communicator chose that moment to go off. “Tommy? Jason? Do you copy?”

Tommy raised his wrist to his mouth. “We hear you Alpha, what is it?”

“I believe I have solved our teleportation problem. We should now be able to penetrate the radiation field.”

“Alpha, you’re a genius,” Tommy said with unbridled joy. “And your timing is perfect, we need…” he hesitated. Took a breath. “Three for immediate teleportation.”

“Wait.” Mr. Scott held up a hand. “Can we just take one more minute? I’d like to say goodbye to my wife.”

“Dad…”

“It’s OK, Jason. Whatever you think you needed to tell her, I promise you she already knew. Even…” he gestured vaguely at Tommy’s communicator. “Even all this, on some level. I just need a moment; I’ll say it for both of us.”

Jason looked like he wanted to argue, but he relented and nodded. As his father walked gingerly across the remains of his house to where his wife’s body lay, Jason turned back to Tommy and sighed.

“Hey bro, you gonna be OK?”

“I don’t know, man, I really don’t,” Jason said sadly, watching his father kneel down beside the pile of debris that had once been part of the only home he’d ever had. “I’m hanging on by a thread right now. But what you said before…” Jason wiped his mouth with the back of his arm. “I know I didn’t hear much of it and I damn well didn’t deserve half of it, but…thanks, Tommy.”

“Meant every word, bro,” Tommy said with a smile. “And hey, if you need anything, any time, I’m right here.”

Jason smiled back and held out a hand. Tommy grabbed it and Jason surprised him by pulling him into a one-armed hug. Tommy patted his friend’s back a couple times and then stepped back, smiling at Jason again. This one, Jason did not return.

Tommy had a feeling that would be happening a lot in the near future. Before he had a chance to dwell on it much, though, Jason’s father came trotting back over.

“OK,” he said shakily, wiping his eyes again. “You can tell your friend that we’re ready to go now.” Jason put his hand on his father’s shoulder.

“Alpha,” Tommy said into his communicator. “We’re ready. Three for immediate teleportation.”

“Three?” Alpha asked.

“Yeah, Jason’s father is with us. Put us down in the Med Bay, he looks like shit warmed over twice.” Ignoring Mr. Scott’s glare, Tommy went on. “Is there anyone with you right now?”

“Katherine is with me, she is assisting in maintaining communications. Billy went to the lab and the others are in their rooms.”

“OK, send Kat to the Med Bay to meet us. I need to talk to her.”

“Very well, Tommy. Teleporting now.”

Before the familiar tingling of teleportation started, Jason reached out and tapped his father on the shoulder. “Hey Dad?”

“Yeah?”

Jason stood as straight as he could and looked his father in the eye, like he’d been taught his whole life. “I love you.”

His father smiled, a stray tear rolling down his cheek as the sparks began to form around them. “I love you, too, son.”

In the last moments before the teleporter zipped them away, Jason took one last look around the place where he’d spent his entire childhood, where every great memory he’d ever had had taken place, where everything great in his life had started. He reassembled it in his mind’s eye, put all the ruined pieces back together in the perfect way that only memory can. His parents in the kitchen, playfully bickering between kisses on the cheek as they made dinner or washed dishes or swept the floor; his dad mowing the lawn, an old T-shirt wrapped around his head to avoid sunburn; Sean or Nathan dragging him out the door to play football or soccer or baseball with them; Nathan, at thirteen, doing double chores for a week so his cool older brother would help him sneak into an R-rated movie; Sean helping him re-paint his room, finally getting the dark red walls he’d always wanted, and the two of them throwing gobs of paint at each other until their clothes were unrecognizable; the infinite times his friends had come over, countless dinners and sleepovers and video game tournaments and late night study sessions that his parents never once complained about. And finally, his mother tucking him into bed, brushing his hair back from his forehead and calming all of his five-year-old fears the way only a mother could, and kissing him goodnight, that one gentle kiss making everything bad in the world go away, that quick little peck on the cheek all it took to make him feel totally loved and totally safe.

Jason closed his eyes against the tears that threatened to spill out again. That was the home he wanted to remember, not this smoldering ruin but the vibrant, loving, welcoming place that he had thought would always be waiting for him to come back to. Now, though, he held the image of it in his mind for as long as he could, because as he felt himself being teleported away, he knew with a devastating certainty that he would never return to this place again.

There was nothing here for him anymore.


	10. A Whisper and A Clamor

**“Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.”  
** **-George R. R. Martin**

**“For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.”  
** **-Carl Sagan**

**Command Center  
** **Medical Bay  
** **Somewhere Outside Angel Grove, CA  
** **August 28, 2012  
** **8:00 PM PDT**

As the teleportation sparks around them began to dissipate, Jason heard his father groan and swear under his breath. The instant the Med Bay came into focus, he leapt toward where his father had appeared and was just in time to catch him from falling on his face. His knees had given way and his face was turning a sickly shade of green.

“You kids do that all the time?” Mr. Scott asked incredulously as his son helped him over to one of the medical beds. “God, I feel like I’m gonna puke up my entire GI tract.”

“That’s what everybody says the first time, Dad,” Jason grunted as he lifted his father onto the end of the table and glanced up at the equipment. “Teleportation’s an acquired taste; kinda like beer. Or Japanese porn.”

“OK, I’m only letting that one go because it didn’t make any goddamn sense,” Mr. Scott grumbled, wiping absently at his face. Jason smiled and tapped a few keys on a small keypad that folded out from the machinery on the bed.

“Seriously, though, this really is the only way to travel; once you get used to teleporting, the idea of spending nine hours on a plane and sleeping in an airport just doesn’t seem worth the trouble anymore.” Jason paused and turned to look at Tommy, who was already starting for the door. “You gonna go check in? I might be a minute in here, I have to figure out how to make this thing work on someone who isn’t plugged in to the Grid.”

Mr. Scott raised an eyebrow. “Who are you, Morpheus? What the hell are you talking about?”

Jason held up a hand. “Dad, they could fill a college course with the amount of shit I still have to explain to you. Just roll with it for now, OK?” His father gave him a skeptical look, but he nodded and leaned back onto the table. Jason turned back to Tommy, who had stopped just in front of the door.

“You’ll figure something out, Jase,” he said, not turning around to meet Jason’s eye. “I’ll go see if anything else has happened. Be back as soon as I know anything.”

“All right, thanks,” Jason said to his friend’s back as Tommy moved forward, letting the doors slide open and shut behind him. He turned back to his father and shook his head with amusement.

Mr. Scott pointed at the door as it closed behind Tommy. “Why do I get the feeling he wasn’t being completely forthcoming with you?”

“Cause he wasn’t,” Jason said casually, folding the keypad back against the monitor and offering his father a sad smile. “He’s handling me, Dad. I heard him tell Alpha to have Kat meet him here; he’s probably out there right now trying to figure out who to tell what happened, who gets to know what and when, how everyone should approach me for the next little while, if at all; maybe a backup plan for if I have a breakdown and they need someone else to drive my Zord.” His father looked ready to ask another question and Jason held up a hand. “Seriously, Dad, entire fucking semester’s worth of shit to talk about. One step at a time.”

Mr. Scott studied his son’s face intently, trying to figure out when he’d developed this completely unreadable expression. Finally he settled for asking, “And you’re OK with this?”

Jason shrugged and turned to open a drawer in a nearby counter. “I guess I’m gonna have to be. I’ve done it to enough people myself; in a way it’s almost poetic.” He pulled out a box of antiseptic wipes and tossed them to his father. “Wipe the blood off your face with those if you want. You can try to clean the wound but it might sting.” Mr. Scott nodded and set to opening the box as Jason continued. “Besides, Tommy’s way too smart to think I don’t know exactly what he’s doing. In his early days I gave him this treatment so many times it almost became a routine, and believe me, he hated it as much as I’ve ever seen anyone hate anything; he knows me well enough to anticipate me objecting to this. He’s probably already figuring out a dozen different ways to tell me he isn’t gonna put up with my shit if I try to give him a hard time.” Jason folded his arms and watched his father clean the blood off his face.

“How are you so sure that that’s what he’s doing?” Mr. Scott gently brushed a wipe across the wound in his forehead. When he didn’t wince in pain and started wiping harder, Jason figured it didn’t sting. The Red Ranger let the faintest trace of a smirk flicker across his face and looked down at his folded arms.

“Because it’s exactly what _I_ would be doing.”

Ignoring another confused look from his father, Jason let his eyes roam over the medical equipment again. Suddenly his eyes widened a little and he smiled in earnest. “Oh my god, I’m such an idiot,” he muttered with a gentle laugh. He moved back to stand beside his father again and pulled his morpher back out from behind his back, popping the coin out from the center. “Hold this,” he said, laying the coin in his father’s hand. Jason replaced the now empty morpher and gripped his father’s wrist, maneuvering his arm until his hand lay flat, palm up, with the coin in the middle. Finally, he glanced up to meet Mr. Scott’s eye. “Dad, do you trust me?”

Mr. Scott opened and closed his mouth twice before he answered. “Honestly…I’m not sure I _know_ you anymore.”

Something very dark floated over Jason’s features for a moment. “And when we’re done here, you can take it up with my boss,” he muttered bitterly. “But you have to believe me when I tell you I’m still the same guy you said goodbye to at the Geneva airport on my last birthday. I’m still your son. And right now, I _need_ for you to trust me.” He stared intently at his father. “What do you say?”

Mr. Scott could only offer a nod. Jason returned it, shifted his weight, and raised his other hand. “OK. Now this is probably gonna feel a little weird,” he said slowly. _If it doesn’t blow us both to hell._ “But you have to do everything in your power to not let go of my hand. You ready?” His father nodded again and Jason braced his foot against the leg of the table, let out a long, slow breath and grabbed Mr. Scott’s outstretched hand, pressing the coin between their palms.

Rick Scott had never felt anything like this. It was as though his entire body was vibrating, a wave of intense heat slowly radiating from his hand, down his arm, across his body and down into his legs. He thought he saw small bolts of red lightning flickering in the air along his arm. After a moment, he realized his vision had suddenly become clearer; his breathing was less erratic, his heart rate was slowing down…if he didn’t know any better, he could have sworn his feelings of fear and confusion were being softened. “What the hell is that?”

Jason grinned. “ _That_ , Dad, is the Morphin Grid.”

He shook his head. “That doesn’t explain anything. How are you doing this?”

“Frankly, I don’t actually understand very much about how it works,” Jason replied, smiling again as the machines began to whir to life and started tending to his father’s wounds. “But I know I’m connected directly to it through this coin, and your DNA is close enough to mine that if we maintain this contact we can connect you to it, too. Indirectly, of course, but enough to get these babies to do their thing. The rest was just a lucky guess.”

“How can you be around something this…this bizarre and be so calm about it?”

Jason tightened his grip a little and leaned in toward his father’s face. “I think now you have a little perspective on the last four years of my life, Dad.” He smiled grimly. “Believe me: you get used to it.”

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Medical Bay Corridor  
** **8:05 PM PDT**

By the time Kat came through the door from the Main Chamber into the hallway that led to the Med Bay, Tommy had already trudged out of the room, jabbing one hand into his pocket and using the other to wipe a clean streak into the grime that coated his forehead. Kat hadn’t been a Ranger for nearly as long as the Originals – if her math was right, she was coming up on one year, while the first five were approaching their fourth; Tommy was only a month or two behind them – but she’d been through more than enough battles to know what that body language meant.

Something very bad had just happened.

Kat couldn’t say she was really surprised; after all, Tommy had sounded pretty shaken up when they’d last spoken. Still, the way the White Ranger was walking, the way he clenched and unclenched his fingers on his free hand, the way he was breathing, the way he couldn’t seem to stop rapidly blinking; Kat suddenly found herself wondering if she was prepared for what he was about to dump on her.

_That’s not really fair,_ she thought as she watched him, trying not to betray her anxiety. _You just had the bad luck of being the nearest person to him._ If only she’d heard the rest of what he’d said to Alpha; maybe at least then she would’ve had an idea of what she was in for.

Finally deciding it was high time she made her presence felt – and sick of watching Tommy pace in a small circle just outside the Med Bay door – Kat turned back to the still-open doorway behind her, shouted a few last-minute instructions to Alpha to make sure he’d monitor communications for her, and stepped forward into the brightly lit corridor, feeling the soft _whoosh_ of air as the door slid shut behind her.

Tommy didn’t say a word, nor did he look up to acknowledge her. Instead, he turned and walked straight toward her, his gaze fixed on the floor in front of him. Kat moved to meet him halfway, their footfalls echoing in the pregnant silence. Finally, she licked her lips and took the plunge, the words suddenly tumbling out faster than she could stop them. “Tommy, what happened? Are you all right? What were you talking about before, you said something about how Tanya and I missed someone and then you just cut me off. You really gave me a –“ she trailed off as the realization hit her. “Wait. Where’s Jason?”

Tommy sighed deeply and finally lifted his head to look at her. The typical mask of stoic, determined calm was back in place, marred only slightly by the small, glistening wet spots beneath his eyes. “Jason’s in there,” he said, gesturing to the Med Bay door. His voice was steady, if raspy and a little strained. “With his father.”

Kat’s brow furrowed in bewilderment. “His father? You found his _father_? But everyone was at the park, what about the rest of his –“ _Oh god._

_“Everyone? You’re sure?”_

_“Yeah, I think so. Why? What’s wrong?”_

_“Not everyone.”_

Kat clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes going wide. Tommy closed his and let a long, shaky breath out through his nose, and in that moment Kat felt something inside of her break off and crumble away. She swallowed hard, her throat already starting to close up. Her hand dropped from her face and joined its partner in wrapping her arms around her chest. “Oh my god,” she choked out. “You found them, didn’t you?”

If Kat had sought compassion in Tommy’s face, she wouldn’t find it. He was all business now, the soldier pushing the boy aside and rising firmly to the surface. When he spoke, it was not with malice or anger, but there was no warmth to be found in it, either; it was a tone that befitted the leader of a team of child warriors. “Jason and his father found them.” Kat felt the tears break free in earnest now, her eyes stinging as she fought to regain her composure as seamlessly as Tommy had. “His mom, his brothers…” he sighed again and made eye contact with her. “None of them ever made it out of their house.”

At this point it was all Kat could do not to collapse to the floor sobbing. She managed a nod and looked over Tommy’s shoulder at the Med Bay door. “How’s he handling it?”

The corner of Tommy’s mouth curled into the faintest hint of a smile. “Like Jason. On first glance you’d think he was doing better than both of us right now.” Kat chuckled humorlessly at that before her Ranger instinct kicked in.

“So how do we do this?” There was no quaver in her voice anymore.

Tommy smiled for real this time. “Well, first of all, c’mere.” She stepped toward him and he wrapped her in a gentle hug, resting his chin on her shoulder. “Second of all,” he murmured into her ear, “I’m sorry about what I said before. I was a little freaked and it came out all wrong; none of this is in any way your fault. OK?”

She stepped back and he let his arms fall back to his sides. “I just can’t believe I didn’t realize that we hadn’t seen a single person from Jason’s family at the park. How can I call myself his friend if I missed something like that?”

“Kat, it was an honest mistake. Besides, even if you had said something, it wouldn’t have made any difference.” She cocked her head at him quizzically and he grimaced. “From what I saw, Jason’s mom looked like she’d been dead for a while already. If his dad didn’t have to leave for work so early in the morning he’d probably be dead, too.”

“Still, though,” Kat said, brushing past that _lovely_ mental image for the moment. “What’s Jason going to think when he finds out I completely forgot about him?”

“Let me ask you something. Do you care about him?”

Kat didn’t hesitate for a second. “I’d die for him. I’d die for any of you, you know that.”

He grinned. “Then I won’t tell if you don’t. Oh, and, uh…let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” He held out a hand. “Deal?”

She managed a small smile and took his hand in hers. “Deal.” As he released her hand, she glanced over his shoulder again. “Can I see him?”

Tommy shook his head. “Sorry, Miss Hillard. Operation: Visiting Hours starts now, and you and I are on screening duty.” He glanced down as though in deep thought. “Alpha said Billy was in the lab. He still there?”

“Last I checked. I sent Tanya in there, too. She managed to get Zack’s coin and one of the aliens’ weapons and bring them back with her.”

Tommy whistled softly. “Go Tanya. Remind me to buy her a drink later.”

“Tommy, she’s 20. She won’t be able to drink until November.”

“Never stopped us before,” he said with a wink.

“Except in here,” she retorted, making a sweeping gesture that encompassed the entire Command Center. “Where the technology is five centuries ahead of the rest of the world but you ask for a beer and it’s bloody Prohibition.”

“OK, Capone,” he said with a chuckle. “I had nothing to do with that and it’s also not the time. Now, uh…where was I?”

“You were making plans to get an underage girl drunk, o paragon of virtue.”

“Wow, you made the jump from congratulatory drink to potential date rapist awfully quick; I’m not sure if I should laugh or be insulted.”

“Why don’t we table that moral dilemma and get back to the task at hand. What do you want me to do about Billy and Tanya?”

“Right.” Tommy cleared his throat and Kat actually saw the humor fade out of his eyes. As far as Kat knew, Jason was at the point where he could slip into and out of leader mode so smoothly that nobody would notice until it had already happened; something that probably came from never having been on the other side of things. With Tommy, who’d been taking orders for a long time before he ever started giving them, it was different. She didn’t know about the others, but she could _see_ when it happened for him, the way his eyes darkened slightly or his jaw set harder or his hands somehow either found their way into his pockets or folded themselves at the small of his back. It was subtle, but it was there, and she hadn’t decided yet if she was more awed or disturbed by it.

“Billy can’t know anything about this. What he’s doing is too important, we can’t have him distracted. He’s probably on edge as it is.” He held up a finger as though struck by inspiration. “We may have lucked out with Tanya being in there more than we thought. Tell her to make sure Billy doesn’t leave the lab. She can wait in there with him or outside at the door, I don’t care, but Billy does not leave. Clear?”

“I’m just not sure why Billy shouldn’t be told anything. He’s been Jason’s friend even longer than you have; doesn’t he deserve to know?”

“Kat, Billy is probably elbow-deep in Zack’s chest cavity right now. Do you think he’s in the most emotionally stable place at the moment? Cause I sure as hell don’t.”

She nodded, fighting back the urge to gag. “What do I tell Tanya?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, a nervous tick he’d picked up from hanging around Jason too much. “As little as you can,” he said softly. “The fewer people getting upset about this the better.”

“OK,” she said. “What are you gonna do?”

“I’m gonna be here,” he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the Med Bay door. “I’m not leaving that door unattended while you’re gone.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Gone where?”

“I need you to get two people and two people only to come back here with you. Don’t tell them anything, don’t let them bring others. Do not pass Go. Just tell them it’s an emergency and send them in here. I’ll fill them in on the rest.”

She nodded slowly. “OK,” she said, as though not quite sure she understood. “Which two people?”

Tommy sighed sadly, and just for an instant Kat thought she saw the soldier falter and the boy slip out, just long enough for a single wince of frustrated sorrow and a lone tear to escape the eyelids. Then, as fast as it had vanished, the soldier was back, cool, calm, poised, ready to get the job done. “The only two people who can really do anything for him right now.” He looked her in the eye, his hazel irises staring out at her past his grime-streaked face. “Trini and Kimberly.”

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Trini Kwan’s Private Quarters  
** **7:40 PM PDT**

The insistent knocking at her bedroom door jarred Trini out of a deep meditation; she had been floating, lazily drifting along in a blissful, silent darkness, when the sharp retorts on the metal plating yanked her back into awareness. The Yellow Ranger groaned and let her head fall backward, her closed eyes staring up into the ceiling. “It’s open.” At the sound of the handle turning she added, “And this had better be damn good.”

Adam and Rocky stopped in the doorway and looked at each other for reassurance. Exchanging a wordless nod, they stepped forward and softly let the door swing shut. Rocky opened his mouth to speak but froze when he noticed the music Trini was listening to – he recognized the rhythm, the deep bassline, the guitars made to sound like bagpipes. Instead of the more professional opening he’d had all planned out in the hallway, he glanced sidelong at Adam and asked, “Isn’t this the song from _The Departed_?”

Adam was still staring at Trini. “You meditate to Dropkick Murphys?”

Trini finally let her eyes open and fixed the two men in an exasperated glare. “It’s no weirder than you choreographing a kata to the _Titanic_ soundtrack. Or Rocky’s all-Katy Perry workout playlist.”

Rocky shrugged sheepishly. “Hey, we weren’t judging. No need to start flinging around crazy accusations like that.”

“Though he did follow her on Twitter for a while,” Adam said with a chuckle. “And all I was gonna say was that you aren’t nearly Irish enough to be able to relax to this stuff.”

Trini smirked at him. “I’m trying to decide whether that was racist or not.”

“I generally default to yes,” Rocky offered, raising a hand. “A little righteous indignation goes a long way.”

“Oh, please, Rock,” Adam groaned, rolling his eyes. “You suck so bad at faking anger there have been times you were actually mad at me and I didn’t buy it. And even when I did, I’ve known you way too long to be afraid of you.”

“So you’ve known him longer than three hours. Big deal.” Trini giggled at the glare Rocky gave her before unfolding her legs and stretching. “Now what the hell do you two want?”

Adam cleared his throat. “Right. Sorry. We think we may have found something.”

“We? What’s this ‘we’ shit? This whole thing was my idea,” Rocky interrupted, jabbing at his own chest to prove his point. Adam raised his eyebrows at him.

“Do _you_ want to explain it to Trini?” Rocky’s face paled a shade. “Right, so anyway, _we_ had a bit of an epiphany a few minutes ago. Can I borrow your monitor?”

Trini raised an eyebrow and gestured toward her wall-mounted screen in a way that said, _be my guest_. Adam nodded his thanks and moved to turn it on. “You may need to log in,” Trini said. “I think Jason was the last person to use it and he always locks it before he leaves.”

“Right, because so many people use these besides us,” Rocky muttered. Adam switched the monitor on and waited for the system to prompt him for his identification.

“Access to Command Center archives restricted; please provide name and Ranger designation.” The voice that came out of the speakers had always sounded to Adam like a mixture of Kat without her accent and whoever had done the voice of Cortana in the _Halo_ games. He cleared his throat and spoke as clearly as he could.

“Adam Park, designation Green-7.” There was only a brief moment of silence before the computerized voice spoke again.

“Access granted. Welcome, Mr. Park.”

“You know I always wondered why you got 7 and I got 8,” Rocky said from behind him. “Why do you get to be first?”

“Cause the Originals had already had a green power, so they put that designation before any of the new ones. And Tommy and Jason like me better,” Adam added with a smirk.

Before Rocky could retort, Trini put a hand on his chest. “You two are gonna be designations ‘bruised’ and ‘bloody’ in a minute if you don’t get to the goddamn point.”

“OK, OK, Jesus,” Rocky said, stepping away from Trini and crossing his arms. “Easy there, Xena. Adam, show her what we talked about.” Adam turned back to the monitor that was now attuned specifically to his voice.

“Computer, display footage and scanner readouts from the ruins of the Moon Palace.”

“Accessing…” After a moment there was a chiming sound and two windows appeared on the monitor – on one side of the screen was what appeared to be drone footage from what remained of Rita and Zedd’s palace; on the other was a long and wordy block of text in the font of all the other computer readouts. Adam stepped back and glanced briefly at Rocky, but the other man seemed to have become immensely interested in something on Trini’s floor. Rolling his eyes, Adam stifled a groan and turned to Trini.

“This all started when Rocky asked me how I thought these things had managed to get to Earth and launch their attack before we even knew they were coming. At first I thought it had to have been some shortcoming of our scanners, like that they’d never experienced these things before or had mistaken their energy signature for something benign. But I double-checked every reading we took – four times – and every single scheduled hourly scan came back completely legit. All the frequencies were right, the parameters hadn’t been changed and there’s no sign that any of the hardware is malfunctioning. So I figured it had to be something external.”

“Wait,” Trini said, moving to stand beside him. “Scheduled scans? Since when do we just do a scan every hour?”

Rocky chose that moment to contribute. “After that thing with Zedd and the ShogunZords Tommy damn near had a nervous breakdown; he spent three hours on the phone with Jason that night and the next morning he made hourly scans of the moon and the surrounding space the new protocol. Conventional wisdom is that it was Jason’s idea for the sake of Tommy’s peace of mind.” He looked to Adam. “I wonder if Tommy even remembers giving that order.”

“We’re lucky if Tommy can remember to zip his fly after he takes a leak,” Trini grumbled good-naturedly. She turned back to the monitor. “So you were thinking there was something out there blocking our scans from detecting these guys? It would make sense; nothing else they’ve done so far has lined up with the villains we’re used to seeing.”

“That’s just it, though,” Adam said. “We’ve had monsters block our scanners before.” He clicked a button on the remote control and another readout appeared on the screen. “Look. That little distortion there, at the bottom? 99 times out of a hundred that means the scans are being blocked by something. There’s no way of knowing what, but in every other instance where the scanners were blocked we could at least _tell_ they were blocked. Here…” he switched back to the most recent data. “Here it just reads like there should be nothing there at all, nothing but dead space. I was going to ask Billy about it but he’s a little…preoccupied.”

“Is that why you guys came to me?” Trini asked.

“You are the third-in-command around here, Tri,” Rocky reminded her. “Jase and Tommy aren’t back yet and Billy’s busy…you’re the highest-ranking person available short of going straight to Big Z himself.” _For all the good it would do_ , he wanted to add, but managed to restrain himself.

“Which we aren’t going to do until we get a senior Ranger’s go ahead,” Adam finished for him, citing another Ranger team protocol that Trini was much more familiar with. “And you, Miss Kwan, are our lucky vict- I mean, sounding board,” he added with a grin. Trini glared at him playfully.

“Thank you two for taking initiative, but Adam, you ever call me Miss Kwan again they’ll be calling you Miss Park by the time I’m done with you.” Rocky burst out laughing so hard he started choking. Adam just nodded and returned his attention to the monitor.

“You can try to castrate me later, Tri. There’s more.” Rocky snorted with laughter again at that, his sides shaking as he fought to get himself under control. Adam clicked the remote again and the most recent scan data filled the entire monitor. “This is where shit starts to get weird.” He pointed at the display. “These are the last scans taken of the Moon Palace. Notice anything?”

Trini frowned. “Yeah, I noticed there’s no sign of anyone who should be there.” She paused. “Just like I noticed it four hours ago when I first saw these. We already know they’re dead. What’s your point?”

“My point is that a complete lack of a reading doesn’t actually indicate that they’re dead.” Adam brought up yet another scan readout. “This is a scan I took of the area surrounding the Youth Center. You see all those little almost-hits?”

Trini nodded. He was right, it was like the scan had registered some kind of result but wasn’t sure whether to classify it as a life sign or not. “It’s the scanner picking up on leftover biological material, like…” she trailed off and Rocky finished for her.

“Like a corpse. Yeah. The scanner is sensitive enough to know that there’s tissue or something there, but since there are no vital signs it doesn’t know whether to classify the result as an actual hit or not. We’re so used to already knowing where the dead bodies are that we’ve never thought of actually scanning some to see what the results would look like. Which brings me to my stroke of brilliance. Adam?”

Adam handed the newly emboldened Rocky the remote control. “Just don’t break it, dude. Definitely won’t help our case.”

“Hey! I won’t break it, I’m good with electronics.”

“I know of three iPods and a phone that would beg to differ.” Rocky growled at him and gripped the remote tighter.

“Accident, accident, younger sibling doing laundry, and the phone was your fault, you left it in your swimsuit in Australia. Now, as I was saying before I was so _rudely_ interrupted…” he clicked a couple of buttons on the remote. “I remembered that Zordon never said anyone had actually seen the _remains_ of anyone in the Moon Palace, just that there were no signs of them anywhere. So, just out of curiosity, I compared previous scans of them to scans of people to try and find the closest matches.”

“Let me guess,” Trini said. “Rita and Scorpina?”

“Yes, but in the opposite order, if you can believe that. Zedd was a very close third; I guess he really did used to be human once. Anyway, I took readings from those three and overlaid them with normal humans and found this.” He pointed at the monitor with the same hand that held the remote. “The parts of human biology that show up most often in our dead body scans show up in both the readings for a live human and the readings for our three top matches. Which means…”

It finally hit Trini what he was talking about. “Which means that if one of those three was really dead under all that rubble, we would’ve picked up on _something_ , not just read nothing at all as though it was empty space. OK, you guys are right – something’s damn weird on the moon.”

“But wait, there’s more!” Rocky was practically giddy with excitement now. Adam grabbed the remote back from him and stepped back next to Trini.

“And since this next part was almost entirely my idea, I’ll be the one to discuss it, if you don’t mind.” The second Green Ranger clicked one final button and the camera feed from the moon reappeared and filled the entire screen. “I figured that if the scanners weren’t going to pick up on the bodies or lack thereof, we’d need to do some recon before we just start charging out there half-cocked. So I appropriated one of the Command Center’s scout droids and sent it up to the moon to see what it could find.” He turned to the monitor and raised his voice a little. “Computer, rewind to saved timestamp.” After a moment, the footage cut to a different feed, the display indicating that the new view was several hours old.

“What am I looking for?” Trini asked.

“This is the same feed Adam, Tanya and Kat saw on the Viewing Globe when they first got here,” Rocky piped up. “Only they were so in shock at the time that they took one look at the smoking ruins and checked the fuck out. Not that I blame them,” he added quickly at Adam’s glare. “It’s still a lot to take in.” Adam turned back to the screen.

“But when I had a chance to take a second look at it I noticed something.” As Trini watched, the feed panned over the remnants of what had once been the source of all of their nightmares, nothing but jagged, broken pieces of stone and steel and the occasional putty part left to indicate that it had ever been there at all. She whistled softly.

“Gotta say, as scary as this must have been to see the first time, this footage could be almost therapeutic to some people.”

“We’ll make copies for Jason and Tommy later,” Rocky said with a smile. “First, though, you need to see this.”

“What’s there to see? It’s just a bunch of wreckage and a big pile of…wait.” Trini stepped closer to the screen, narrowing her eyes and raising a hand to point. “Is there something wrong with the feed or does it look like the rubble is a different color here?”

“Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner!” Rocky’s cheesy game show host impression got both Adam and Trini to snicker despite themselves. He stepped around Adam and grinned at Trini, folding his arms over his chest. “I saw it, too. Adam was sure it was some kind of problem with the feed so I told him to prove it. He had the camera move in closer…and this happened.” Rocky pointed to the screen as the perspective moved smoothly and slowly forward and upwards, along the mound of debris that marked the site of the Moon Palace, before suddenly jerking forward and careening straight into the rocks.

“What the hell was that?” Trini exclaimed, leaning back a little in surprise.

“That was Rocky getting impatient and bumping my joystick arm with his knee,” Adam said with a glare at his best friend. Trini groaned and rolled her eyes.

“Hey, it worked out, didn’t it?” Rocky protested. “Look!”

Trini glared at Rocky skeptically but returned her gaze to the screen. The camera had come to a stop so close to the rocks that the entire screen was taken up by a blur of dull gray. As the perspective started to shift, something in the feed seemed to flicker; for the space of a fleeting instant, Trini was certain the rocks in front of the camera had vanished to reveal something behind them. “Did you see that?”

Adam just smiled and gestured to the screen. “O ye of little faith. Just watch.” The camera had frozen, as if whoever was operating it was torn about what to do. Finally, after a long, tense moment, it moved forward again, slowly, tentatively, until it seemed like it was about to bump into the rocks.

A few things happened in very quick succession. The rocks in front of the camera seemed to suddenly become transparent; the view continued to move forward far beyond where the rocks should have been. There was time for the three Rangers to catch a glimpse of what appeared to be a large, flat, open expanse with something carved out of the floor; then the feed abruptly jerked to the left and cut to static. Trini frowned.

“Did Rocky hit the controls again?”

“No, believe it or not, that last one happened all on its own,” Adam replied, tucking his free hand into a pocket. “I couldn’t restore the feed after that so this is all we have, but there are all of about five frames…” he started repeatedly tapping a button on the remote and backed the footage up to just before the camera met the rocks. “Computer, pause footage and proceed frame by frame at ten-second interval.” He looked over at Trini. “Rocky and I haven’t even looked at these yet, we thought we should tell someone before we went any further.”

The footage played out before them in what were basically still photographs. As the camera moved through the rocks like they weren’t even there, the three of them suddenly had a perfectly clear view of what lay beyond.

“Computer, freeze playback!” Adam nearly shouted. The footage halted on that one frame, the one single frame they had of the real situation on the moon. None of them said anything for a long moment; what they were seeing defied immediate reaction.

Rita and Zedd’s palace had been completely destroyed; that much their earlier surveys of the site had gotten right. What they’d missed had been what was hidden behind the area where the massive fortress of evil had once stood. A massive, perfectly flat expanse, roughly the size of about four football fields, spread out behind the Palace ruins in an enormous circle. In the ground inside the circle a symbol had been carved, taking up almost the circle’s entire surface area. Adam thought it looked like two sigma symbols flipped back-to-back on either side of a thick vertical line; four dots filled in the open angles left on either side and a circle had been drawn inside the diamond that had formed in the middle. Several dozen of the blue creatures they had already seen were milling around in the flattened area – with a noticeable lack of spacesuits or breathing equipment – though from their vantage point it was hard to tell what they were doing.

Trini was the first one to find her voice. “Have either of you ever seen that symbol before?” Adam shook his head, but Rocky stepped forward and pointed at something near the top of the image.

“I’m a little more concerned about whatever the fuck this is,” he said, glancing back at his two teammates. Adam and Trini followed Rocky’s finger and frowned in unison. Near the far edge of the circle was the beginnings of some kind of structure, gleaming pieces of metal and chunks of rock from the wreckage alternating with foreign parts that more closely resembled the obsidian black of the invading armada.

“They’re building something,” Adam muttered to himself. “What would they need to build on the moon?”

“All the more reason to go ahead with our idea from before,” Rocky said. Adam nodded. Trini raised an eyebrow.

“Idea?”

Adam cleared his throat. “Rocky and I think we should send a team to check this out in person. Preferably the more people the better, considering the numbers situation. I haven’t thought through every contingency yet, but I know we have ten Rangers and five Zords that can fly. We can have one team on the ground and another providing air support. We get in, we do some recon, we blow _that_ ,” he motioned at the structure, “to hell if the need arises, and we get back here with as much information as we can get.” He glanced from one of his teammates to the other. “I don’t know about you two but I’m really fucking tired of being in the dark. We’ve already lost enough, I think it’s high time we take something back.”

Rocky smiled. “You know Adam, I think Jason might be rubbing off on you.”

“I’m onboard,” Trini said. “But I don’t know what Tommy or Jason or Zordon may know that we don’t yet. You guys take this to one of them. If it comes to it, I’ll back you up.”

Adam raised an eyebrow. “Even if it’s Jason?”

Trini grinned. “Jason thinks it’s hot when I argue with him. Sometimes I just do it for shits and giggles because I know he gets a kick out of it.”

Rocky fanned himself with one hand. “Whew! With you two around, who needs porn?”

Trini snorted. “Aisha’s right, you are disgusting. Can you not go five minutes without turning our lives into your own personal Penthouse forum?”

“Hey, now that you mention it…”

“Rocky, I swear to god, if you finish that sentence I will not even _try_ to stop what Trini’s gonna want to do to you.” Adam chuckled and tossed the remote from one hand to the other. He stepped away from the others and set it back on Trini’s counter where he’d found it. “Computer, bookmark these readouts and log out.”

“Goodbye, Mr. Park.”

“Good morning, Dave,” Rocky said, imitating the computer. Adam bit back a laugh; even Trini broke into a smile.

That was when another knock sounded on the door. “Trini? You in there?”

“Kat?” Trini crossed the room to the door and swung it open, revealing the slender Australian standing in the hallway, arms wrapped around herself, eyes bloodshot; her demeanor, though, was calm, if a little somber. “Is something wrong?”

“Tommy needs to see you in the Med Bay,” she replied. “It’s important.”

“Tommy and Jason are back?” Kat jumped a little at the sound of Rocky’s voice as he and Adam approached from behind Trini. “We’ll come too, we have something to talk to him about.”

“Sorry, guys, Tommy only asked for Trini. He was very specific,” Kat said softly. She made eye contact with Trini and gave her a very significant look. The Asian girl understood immediately; she leaned forward and spoke so quietly that only Kat could hear.

“Is it about Jason?” Kat gave her an almost imperceptible nod. Trini felt her blood run cold. “Is he hurt again?”

“I don’t think so,” Kat said. “But I’m not supposed to say anything else. Tommy will fill you in when you get there.”

Trini nodded and turned to the guys. “I’ll see if I can send Tommy to see you when we’re done. Where are you gonna be?”

“Probably my place,” Adam said, holding up a hand. “Thanks, Tri.”

She nodded again. “Shouldn’t be long. See you guys later.”

With that, the four of them filed out of Trini’s room. Adam and Rocky disappeared around a corner, already bickering again as they headed for Adam’s room. Kat pulled Trini down the hallway in the other direction.

“Um, Kat?” Trini jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Med Bay’s that way.”

“I know,” Kat said without an ounce of humor. “We have one more person to get first.”

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Kimberly Hart’s Private Quarters  
** **7:45 PM PDT**

“Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Robert Downey, Jr.”

“Hmm. Nineties DiCaprio or modern DiCaprio?”

“ _Titanic_ DiCaprio.”

“Fuck Robert, marry Leo, kill Matt. Come on, Sha, you’re making this too easy.”

Aisha glanced up at Kim from where she lay sprawled on the latter’s pink bedspread. “OK then, Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong,” she said with exaggerated cheerfulness. “Why don’t you show me how it’s done?”

“Fine,” Kim said smugly. She thought for just a brief moment and broke into a grin. “The male cast of _Friends_ , as of 1998.”

Aisha sucked in a breath. “Damn it, you actually gave me a hard one.”

“You doubted me?”

“You don’t want me to answer that question,” Aisha retorted, her eyes twinkling. “Now let me think.” She paused, staring intently into the comforter she lay on top of; after a minute she looked back up at Kim. “Wait – actors or characters?”

“Actors, duh,” Kim said, rolling her eyes. “Didn’t we agree no fictional characters?”

“So that all- _Harry Potter_ one you gave me ten minutes ago doesn’t count?”

“I maintain that that never happened,” Kim said, holding up a finger. Aisha narrowed her eyes at her.

“You can’t just say it never happened and have it be true.”

“My room, my rules,” Kim said with a smile, gesturing to herself. “Now answer the question.”

Aisha sighed. “God, you can be such a bitch,” she grumbled good-naturedly. Kim snickered and she thought for another few seconds. “OK, fuck LeBlanc, marry Schwimmer, kill Perry.”

Kim raised an eyebrow at her. “Really? I get LeBlanc, but you’d take Schwimmer over Perry? Schwimmer’s such a goober. Besides, I thought he was gay.”

“Perry’s definitely hotter, but the drug thing’s a dealbreaker,” Aisha replied. “And Schwimmer’s not gay, he’s married and he has a daughter.”

“He got someone to marry him? Like, voluntarily?”

“Damn, when you decide you don’t like someone you don’t half-ass it, do you?”

Kim chuckled. “Next time you have a moment with Billy or Jason, ask them about what I did to Trini’s first boyfriend after he cheated on her. I think it’s popped up on a couple urban legend websites.” The two of them shared a laugh at that, the first time Aisha had seen Kim so much as smile all day. As the moment passed, though, Aisha saw her friend’s happy façade falter; a shadow passed over her face, a bitter emptiness appearing in her eyes.

“Kimmy, what’s going on with you?” Aisha asked softly, propping herself up on her elbows. Kim frowned at her.

“Way to ruin the moment, Sha,” she groaned, leaning her forehead onto her crossed arms. “The whole reason I asked you in here was to have a little girl talk, hang out, relax, just…” she lifted her head and Aisha saw that her eyes had suddenly filled with tears. “Just be normal for a little while. One last time.” Kim’s voice was bitter, despondent, fragile; it was a tone Aisha wasn’t used to hearing from her.

“Kimmy…”

“And don’t give me that ‘Kimmy’ bullshit like I’m five years old,” Kim snapped at her. “I don’t even let Jason call me that anymore, what the fuck makes you so special?”

“Girl, you act like a five year old you shouldn’t be surprised when people talk to you like one.” Aisha sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, leveling her gaze at Kim while she tried to find something to do with her hands. “And speaking of Jason, I think he’d hate the way you’re acting right now.”

Kim snorted and glared at her. “Please. You barely know him.”

“But I know _you_ ,” Aisha said, pointing at Kim to illustrate her point. “And I know that you don’t talk to your friends like this no matter how fucked up the situation is. I know you don’t shut yourself up in your room and sulk while the boys are making battle plans. And I definitely know I’ve never seen you look at Tommy as though he just shot your puppy. So something has to be going on with you. And I am not leaving this room until you cowgirl up and fucking talk to me.”

“You really think now is the best time to try your hand at psychotherapy, Sha?” Kim asked ruefully, letting her head fall back against the cool steel wall. “Don’t you think we have more important things to worry about?”

“This is the perfect time,” Aisha retorted. “You’re not the only one who’s seen what’s happening, Kim. Rocky told me all about what happened at the Youth Center; things have gotten full-on Old Testament out there.”

“Right, and you’re sitting in here wasting your time trying to get into my brain,” Kim interrupted, jabbing a finger into her own temple. Aisha glared at her, clearly upset about being cut off.

“I think the bigger waste of my time is telling myself not to just come over there and kick you in the head,” Aisha growled. “I don’t know what the hell’s gotten into you, Kim, but you’re not doing anybody any good by throwing a tantrum like a fucking toddler. Whatever the hell is making you act like this cannot possibly be as important as protecting the planet.” She let that hang for a second before adding, “I’m not asking you to smooth everything over by yourself. I just want you to talk to me; you can tell me anything, remember?”

Kim started to retort again, but after a moment she just sighed and let her head flop back again. “Were you there when I got here? Everything happened so fast I don’t remember.”

Aisha shook her head. “I was the last one back. By the time I got here you and Flyboy had already left to check on Team World Peace in there,” she jerked a thumb over her shoulder. Kim cracked a small smile at the nickname. “And everything kinda started exploding after that; we never really had a chance to talk that wasn’t screaming or crying or one of your one-liners.”

“Hey, you said I was good at those!” Kim protested, wiping her eyes. Aisha was relieved to see the tears appeared to have stopped.

“I never said I was complaining,” Aisha said, her eyes twinkling. “In fact I kinda missed that out in the Heart of Darkness. But they still aren’t the same as a decent conversation.” She stood and took a tentative step toward Kim, as though she was worried about scaring her away. “So why don’t you tell me why you’ve been so on edge since I got here?”

“Aren’t we all a little on edge right now?”

“Sure, a little, but nobody as much as you.” Aisha closed the distance between her and Kim and lowered herself beside her friend so they both sat with their backs against the wall. “Jason and Tommy had probably switched into soldier mode before I ever even got here. Trini and Adam have always been the stoic types, Rocky’s doing his 21-going-on-14 thing like he always does; Billy’s neck-deep in his work, as usual; Kat’s trying to put up a strong front and Tanya I think is still too new at this to really know what to think about it. I remember how that felt.” She smiled at Kim and got a soft laugh in return. “And I, of course, am still the same kick-ass Mama Bear warrior bitch I’ve always been.” Kim giggled a little harder at that one. “Which just leaves you.”

Kim eyed her warily. “Why do I get the feeling I’m not gonna like what you’re about to say?”

“Cause the truth hurts, sister,” Aisha said with a grin, poking Kim’s knee to punctuate each word. “You’ve been withdrawn, jumpy, broodier than a YA vampire, and you’ve been making an active effort to avoid your boyfriend every chance you get. And on top of all that, I’ve never seen you have _less_ fun morphing than you did at your house today. Usually once you pinky up you’re like an ADHD kid on a sugar high; I used to joke with Billy that your spirit animal was Rocky.” Kim made a face of mock indignation. Aisha shook her head and continued. “But this time you were all business; even your little quips seemed like you were trying too hard. Honestly, that scared me more than the thought of not having my coin. So please, tell me, what’s going on with you?”

Kim threw her friend one more look of protest, but at Aisha’s firm, determined gaze, the Pink Ranger felt the last of her stubbornness start to crumble. She sighed and turned back to the room, staring off into space as her fingers curled around her knees. “Do you remember the first person you couldn’t save?”

Aisha didn’t respond right away; she could tell she was making some kind of progress, but for the life of her she couldn’t figure out where Kim was going with this. After a moment, though, she squeezed her hands together and dredged up an unpleasant memory. “You know me better than to ask me that,” she said softly, trying not to glance over at Kim. “I had nightmares about it for weeks afterwards.”

She saw Kim nod out of the corner of her eye. “That attack at the carnival, right? The kid on the Ferris wheel?”

Aisha shuddered. “Adam had told me there were people stuck on it; when the monster showed up the first thing it attacked was the closest electrical hub.” She paused and swallowed hard. “By the time we had to call the Zords I guess I assumed that someone had gotten there and gotten them out. I was still so new to everything, it was all so exciting, and I hadn’t gotten to use my Zord yet so I was pumped like you wouldn’t believe. By the time I got into the cockpit I had totally forgotten about anything to do with the situation on the ground; it wasn’t long after that that I got cocky. I charged the monster all by myself and tried to attack it but I took a hit and ended up crashing into the Ferris wheel.” Her voice quavered and she clenched a fist to steel herself. She’d already told this story a dozen times and if staying calm through one more repetition would get Kim out of her funk she figured it would all come out in the wash.

“I was so shaken up from seeing the wheel fall over that I almost missed the call to form the MegaZord,” Aisha said with a sad chuckle. “I don’t even remember anything about what actually happened after we did; it was the first time I’d ever been a part of something like that and I had been so fucking _thrilled_ to finally do it, and yet I spent my entire first time thinking about nothing but whether the people on the Ferris wheel had made it off in time.” If Aisha had looked up, she would’ve seen Kim turn and offer her a reassuring smile. As it was, though, her focus had shifted to her restless hands.

“It was more than three hours before I could finally get back there. I think I pissed Rocky off a little when I wouldn’t tell him why I was in such a hurry during our debrief.” She fought to keep her eyes open – she knew if she closed them the memory of that day would project itself onto her eyelids like a bad drive-in movie.

“I found out later that they had actually started taking people off. They’d had to bring in cherry pickers to get to the people in some of the higher cars, but one of them was hit by a stray shot from the monster and never made it there. Anyway, from what I could see when I got there this kid had been the last one left onboard for whatever reason. When my Zord had knocked the wheel over he had tried to jump out, but…” she drew in a long, shaky breath. “It looked like he had landed safely, but the wheel landed on top of him.” She finally forced herself to look up at Kim.

“When I found him his eyes were still open. There was blood on his face, and the part of the wheel that had fallen on him covered most of his body, but I could tell he was wearing a Power Rangers T-shirt. On the ground a few feet away there was a Red Ranger plushy toy; I don’t know if it was his but I thought he would have wanted it, so I laid it on what was…left…of his chest and ran all the way home. I don’t think I slept for a week after that.” Kim reached out and gently rubbed her back. “That was my fourth day as a Ranger.”

Kim nodded. “Yeah, you got the short shrift as far as honeymoon periods. It took Trini almost a month before she had an incident like that.”

“Oh, don’t give me that crap,” Aisha grumbled playfully. “I know for a fact that there were people whose happy fun times were a hell of a lot shorter than mine.”

“Not people, _person_ ,” Kim corrected. “Jason still has the record – he had powers for all of about half an hour before he had to watch someone die. Tommy would have him beat but he refuses to count anything that happened while he didn’t care.” Kim stopped and wrinkled her nose a little. “And I’m suddenly aware of how creepy it is that we keep track.”

Aisha glanced sidelong at her. “And _I’m_ suddenly aware of the bait-and-switch you just pulled on me. You ain’t getting off that easy, hon.” She smiled as Kim shrugged sheepishly. “Care to tell me why you just made me relive that?”

Kim stared at the floor for a moment before she spoke. “I ever tell you about my first time?” Aisha frowned but didn’t turn to face her.

“You mean the woman at the movie theater? The one you’d seen at your mom’s book club meetings?” Kim didn’t say anything, just grunted in acknowledgement. “Yes, I’ve heard the story, and quite frankly I’d really rather not hear it again.” Aisha nudged Kim’s shoulder with her own to get her friend to lift her head up. “What the hell does this have to do with whatever’s bothering you today?”

Kim pushed herself up off the wall and started pacing the floor. “When the shit first hit the fan I was in the middle of a day of practice. I was on the beam, I was working through my routine…it was the same thing I’d done a thousand times.” The longer Kim spoke, the more rushed her words became, as though she were trying to purge her story from her brain all at once but her mouth couldn’t keep up. “Then all of a sudden this giant, glowing orange ball came crashing through the ceiling and before I could even get down off the beam half the gym was on fire. I tried to get as many people out as I could, but there was this purple thing in front of the door, and the fire, and…” Kim choked back a sob and Aisha rose to her feet but stayed near the wall.

“Why didn’t you call for a ride home?”

“I would have,” Kim said, coming to a stop and turning to face her. “Yesterday my communicator was digging into my wrist while I was practicing my floor routine so today when I came in to practice I took it off and left it in my locker. That’s where we were going when we…” she licked her lips, opened and closed her mouth a few times, and finally swung a finger around to gesture at Aisha. “Did you see the, uh…the green shit? Like a, uh…energy field or something?”

Aisha nodded, a humorless chuckle forcing its way out of her throat. “Bluish-green wall of death, pulls the whole _War of the Worlds_ thing? We’ve met. Showed up on my flight home, made an absolute _mess_ out of coach.”

“Yeah, well…after that thing showed up it was down to just me and two other people. Their names were… _are_ …Hannah and Blake. Blake is deaf and I remember actually feeling happy for a minute because I could finally use my sign language again. Hannah had been helping me with my vault for weeks, she was better on the vault than anyone I’d ever seen.” She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head a few times, as if to force herself back on track.

“Anyway, we got into the locker room and the first thing I noticed was that the entire ceiling had been blown off, I thought it was like something out of _Twister_. And I got to my locker, and I _had it_ , I had my communicator in my fucking hand, and then I just heard this _pop_.” Kim held her hand out to Aisha, clenched in a desperate fist, to emphasize her point. “I didn’t see anything, I still have no idea where it came from, but something in here…” she reached behind her and rapped her knuckles lightly on the morpher clipped to her waistband. “Told me to get out of the way. Long story short, when Tommy finally got a hold of me I was on my back on the floor under the bench in front of the lockers. When I got back out Hannah and Blake were just standing there frozen in place, and they had this weird silvery stuff all over them; it was glowing and everything, and when I touched them they felt weird, like…spongey, or something. But I know they were alive, I felt them breathing and everything.” Kim’s expression turned dark.

“But apparently that wasn’t enough for Tommy. I told him over and over that they were alive and they needed help, but he said he couldn’t detect their life signs so there was no way he could teleport them out of there. So no matter how much I pleaded with him, he teleported me out of there against my will and left both of them just standing there in the middle of the goddamn apocalypse. And then, to make matters worse, when I do eventually get back here he has the fucking nerve to try and tell me that we can’t risk teleporting anything in here without a life sign or a Power Coin because it’s too risky, when we all know damn well that’s never been the case before.” She paused and met Aisha’s eye. “He just left them there, and then when I tried to ask him why he just brushed it off like he didn’t care, like it was no big deal.”

Aisha crossed her arms over her chest and waited for Kim to potentially say more; when she didn’t, Aisha calmly asked her the question she’d thought of several minutes ago. “We’ve had to leave people behind before, Kim. More times than we’d like to admit; occupational hazard, I guess. Sorry, but there’s no way that’s what this is about. So tell me – what is it about this that has you so worked up?”

Kim stormed over to the bed and plopped down on it. “OK, yeah. It wasn’t just that he did it; it was what it showed me about him.”

“Which was?”

Kim sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “When it comes down to it, at the end of the day, Tommy would put protecting me in front of everything else. Even the lives of other people. And more importantly, even when I don’t need protecting. If I had been allowed to stay down there, to try and figure out what happened, there’s at least a chance I could’ve done something to help them. But he made that choice for me, because clearly he doesn’t think I’m capable of taking care of myself or anyone else. All I am to him is a fucking liability.”

Aisha winced. “I’m sorry, Kim. That must’ve hurt.”

“And the worst part is that it made me relive all those feelings I had the first time I couldn’t save someone. I’ve tried to make it a point to avoid those feelings ever since that day, and what he did a few hours ago brought all of that rushing back.”

“Have you told him that?” Aisha asked softly, moving toward the bed. Kim shook her head and stared at her feet. “Because after everything he’s done for you, I think the least you can do is give the guy the benefit of the doubt. His reasoning behind it could be something totally different from what you think, but you’ll never know unless you give him a chance to tell his side.”

“I don’t know if I can even look at him right now, Sha.” Kim’s voice was almost a whisper. “Much less carry on a rational conversation.”

“I do, and you can,” Aisha replied. “If not for you two, then for the team. For the planet. As melodramatic as it may sound, the fate of humanity itself may rest on you two figuring this out.” Kim grimaced.

“That’s a scary thought.”

The two of them laughed at that, the two battle-hardened young women letting their softer sides shine through for just a brief moment before a quiet knock on the door brought them right back to harsh reality.

“Kim? You in there?”

“Kat? Yeah, it’s open.” The door swung inward to reveal Kat and Trini, the former looking a little haggard while the latter just looked slightly bewildered. The slender Australian stepped gingerly around the door and stopped just shy of the threshold, her hands thrust into her pockets.

“Tommy sent me to get you. He needs to see you and Trini in the Med Bay. He says it’s urgent.”

“What for?” Aisha asked as Kim rose from the bed and moved to stand beside her. “Is somebody hurt?”

“I’m sorry, Sha, but I’m not supposed to say anything else,” Kat replied. “And he only asked for Kim and Trini. Adam and Rocky are in Adam’s room, Trini says they’ve found something you might think is interesting.”

“O…K,” Aisha said, her voice laced with skepticism. She looked at Kim, who nodded reassuringly. Sighing and rolling her eyes in annoyance, the Purple Ranger made her way past the two women in the doorway and headed toward Adam’s room, muttering under her breath as she went. Kim could’ve sworn she heard something along the lines of “Brangelina bullshit” as Aisha turned the corner, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she glanced over Kat’s shoulder at Trini, who was fidgeting nervously in the hallway.

“OK, Tri, spill. Did she say anything else to you?” Trini wrapped her arms around herself and met Kim’s eye.

“Whatever Tommy wants sounds important, Kim.” Trini motioned with her head toward Kat. “She says it’s about Jason.”

* * *

**Command Center**  
**Medical Bay Corridor  
** **8:15 PM PDT**

Tommy met the girls as they came through the Main Chamber. Zordon had offered to assume the responsibility of breaking Jason’s news to Kimberly and Trini, but Tommy had insisted on doing it himself; he didn’t want to distract Zordon from monitoring their families, anyway. The White Ranger sent Kat back to the lab to relieve Tanya before ushering the other two into the Med Bay Corridor and letting the door close behind them.

“Tommy, what’s going on?” Trini asked softly after Tommy didn’t speak for a moment. “Kat said this had something to do with Jason.” Tommy sighed and rubbed his eyes with his fingers, leaving streaks of grime on the surrounding flesh.

“She wasn’t supposed to say anything,” he muttered, staring past them into the floor. Kim crossed her arms over her chest.

“What, like you weren’t going to tell us that when we got here, anyway?”

“Are you gonna argue with me about this, too, Kim?” He raised his head and finally met her eye. “Because I’m _really_ not in the mood to deal with that right now.”

Kim rolled her eyes. “Oh, believe me, talking to you is the _last_ thing I want to be doing.” Tommy glared at her. Trini just groaned. “I’m only here because Trini was already coming and Jason was involved.” She stopped suddenly and blinked a couple of times as though struck by an epiphany. “And Kat seemed really shaken up…” she exchanged nervous glances with Trini before turning back to Tommy. “OK, Tommy, what the hell’s going on here? You’re scaring me.”

“That makes two of us,” Trini said. She gestured around them. “And why did you have us meet you here? Kat said she didn’t think Jason was hurt but we’re standing outside the Med Bay and you’re acting like you’re on guard duty. Why would he be in there if he wasn’t hurt?”

Tommy held up a hand to stop the flow of questions. “OK, all right, Tri, I need you to try and calm down, OK? I’m not gonna lay this out for you if you’re gonna fly off the handle on me.” She pursed her lips and put her hands on her hips.

“I’ll be fine, Flyboy. Pinkie-swear. Now please, tell us what happened.”

He nodded. “OK, but you both have to promise me you’ll hear me out before you say anything or go anywhere. This situation is very delicate and I don’t want anyone going off half-cocked.”

“Yes, because as I recall you are the prevailing authority on going off half-cocked,” Kim interrupted, once again looking everywhere in the room except at Tommy. He started to retort, but Trini cut him off with a loud, exasperated sigh.

“Oh _god_ would you two just fuck already? Christ, I don’t know how much more of your shit I can tolerate.” Tommy and Kimberly gaped at her, too shocked to respond. “Now Tommy, please tell us everything. And I do mean _everything_. And Kim, if you interrupt him one time I swear on all that is holy I will put you on your ass. OK?”

Kim grumbled something under her breath but didn’t say anything else. Tommy cleared his throat, swallowed, cleared it again, and started his story, glancing warily at Trini. “Yes, Jason’s in there,” he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder at the door. “But not for him. He’s in…” he took a deep breath to steady himself. “He’s in there with his father.”

“OK, you’re gonna need to back _way_ up on that one, buddy,” Kim broke in, completely ignoring Trini’s warning from earlier. The girl in yellow turned to her again.

“Kim, I’m not kidding, one more word and you’re eating your goddamn teeth,” she practically growled. She glanced back at Tommy. “Though she does have a point. How the hell did you two find Jason’s father?”

“I would’ve gotten to that if Kim hadn’t jumped down my throat,” Tommy retorted, glaring at the girl in pink before going on. “Anyway, remember when Kat sent out that call that she and Tanya had seen our families in the prison camp or whatever it is at the park?” He received twin nods in return. “Well…there were a few they didn’t see.” He glanced from one of them to the other, trying to steel himself before he continued. “And by ‘a few,’ I mean Jason’s entire family. His father’s in there, with him; when I left, they were trying to get one of the beds to work for him. But the rest of his family, his mom, Sean, Nathan…” his voice trailed off, his mouth moving mutely around the shapes of words too painful to say again. Kimberly and Trini had gone several shades paler; both of them were putting forth a noticeable effort to maintain their composure. As Original Rangers, they’d had a great deal of practice.

“When we got to the Scotts’ house, there…there was nothing left,” Tommy continued. “Everything was gone, it was nothing but a pile of rubble. Jason got to it first and I guess he was looking for his coin because he started digging through stuff and he found…” Tommy sighed and spoke to the floor. “He found his mom’s body.” He raised his head to face them, knowing the next part would be the hardest. “She’d had a 2x4 driven through her chest.” This time neither of the girls could hold in the gasps of shock; Trini put a hand over her mouth. Kim’s eyes were glistening already.

“Jason doesn’t know that last part; I still haven’t figured out whether to tell him or not.”

“How did you find his father?” Trini asked quietly, her voice still steady but thick with emotion. Tommy ignored the fact that she’d asked a question despite his previous request.

“Actually, he found us,” Tommy said. “He just came walking up to us while I was trying to calm Jason down – finding his mom like that, he…he took it pretty hard. Anyway, apparently Mr. Scott had been around for a while – he’d already found Jason’s coin by the time we got there. Which, as you’ve probably already figured out, means he knows about the Ranger thing.”

“What about his brothers?” Kim asked, her voice almost too low to hear. Tommy hesitated; at the look on his face, she added, “Or do we even want to know?”

“Doesn’t matter if you want to,” Tommy answered gently, trying his best to ease the blow. “Jason knows, and if you want to help him you’re gonna have to know too.” He swallowed, curled and uncurled his fists and licked his lips. “Mr. Scott said he’d found them in another part of the house. We couldn’t get him to say anything else – though not for lack of trying. All he said was that apparently it was so bad that he didn’t want Jason to see what was…” he sighed sadly. “What was left.”

Kim let out a choked sob; Trini sighed sadly and bowed her head. “Shit,” she whispered, running a hand through her hair. She looked up at Tommy, fighting back tears. “I need to see him. He’s probably going through hell right now.”

Tommy nodded. “That’s why I asked for you two. Out of everyone here, you’re the best equipped for getting him through this right now. I’d be in there myself, but I just…”

“What?” Kim asked with a frown, seeming genuinely concerned this time. “Tommy, you’re his best friend. You’d be just as much help to him as we would be.”

Tommy turned back to her, running a hand over his face. “You weren’t there, Kim. I’ve never seen him…break down like that before. I mean, I know he gets depressed sometimes, hell I’ve even seen him get choked up once or twice, but he was…he was _sobbing_. He was crying so hard his father and I could talk about him and he was right there and didn’t hear us. I didn’t think that was even possible for him. I have no idea how to help him when he’s like that.” He glanced from one of the girls to the other. “Have you ever seen him that bad before?”

Kim and Trini exchanged looks. “Yeah, once,” Trini finally said. “But it was a long time ago, before you ever moved to town.” She licked her lips, casting nervous glances at the closed Med Bay door. “Did Jason ever tell you about his sister?”

Tommy’s brow furrowed in confusion. “He has a sister?”

“I guess that’s a no,” Kim put in. “Don’t be offended or anything, he doesn’t talk about it much.” Trini nodded and Kim went on. “Her name was Kristen. Jason was thirteen when she was born, I remember because his mom started having contractions at his birthday party. She was born about a month early, but that usually isn’t that big of a deal so nobody really thought too much of it.” She blew a breath out of one corner of her mouth. “Three weeks after they brought her home Jason went to check on her and found her dead in her crib.” Tommy winced. “The doctors called it SIDS – you know, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome? Which was basically a really fancy way of saying they had no fucking idea what had happened.”

“Which is completely legitimate,” Trini interjected. “Babies die sometimes without any discernible reason. Doesn’t make it any less sad, but it’s not like anyone could’ve seen it coming.”

Kim waited a moment to speak again. “That was the worst I’ve ever seen Jason. There were a couple of weeks there when I wasn’t sure he’d ever be the same again. It took almost two months for him to be back to normal, and even then he won’t even say her name anymore.” She leveled her gaze at Tommy. “That’s the extent of my experience here. But that was almost a decade ago, Tommy, and we’ve had our entire Ranger careers happen since then. Jason isn’t the same person he was when he was thirteen, none of us are. What makes you think Trini and I are gonna be able to do anything here that you can’t do yourself?”

Tommy wasn’t sure how to answer that, but Trini read it all over his face. “Because he doesn’t think Jason would want him to.” Kim whirled around and stared at her best friend.

“What? Why not?”

“Because there are only two people in the world Jason trusts to be in charge of this team at a time like this,” Trini replied, never looking away from Tommy. “Himself. And you.”

Tommy nodded, relieved he hadn’t had to say it himself. “Jason would never forgive me if I put his well-being before the mission. Hell, he wouldn’t want us worrying about taking care of him at all. So if I’m going to do exactly that, I can at least make some attempt to cover it up.” He looked from one of his original teammates to the other. “That’s where you two come in. We need him out of there and ready to go if we want to stand a chance. I need you two to help him get there so that I can hold down the fort in the meantime.” He sighed again, running a hand through his hair. “Look, you two know him better than anyone. Even me. He’ll open up to you, especially you, Tri. And Kim, he’s known you as long as he’s been alive, I can’t imagine him holding anything back from you. I have a job to do, he would want me to buck up and do it. That’s how I’m helping.”

“Wow, you’ve really thought this through, haven’t you?” Kim asked, searching his face with the first real display of compassion Trini had seen her make toward Tommy all day.

He laughed humorlessly. “Needed something else to focus on or I ran the risk of going crazy.”

“Yeah, like you weren’t halfway there already,” Trini teased, cracking a small smile. Tommy grinned back, feeling some of the tension finally drain out of the room. “Oh, by the way,” Trini added abruptly. “Speaking of your job, Rocky and Adam have something you need to hear. I think they might actually be on to something.”

Tommy clapped his hands together. “Fantastic. I’ll go talk to them – Adam’s room?” Trini nodded. “Thought so. You two take as long as you need. Oh, and try to go easy on his dad, I think Jase is trying not to overwhelm him with Ranger stuff right off the bat.” He made a move toward the door to the Main Chamber but stopped and turned back to them just as the door slid open, his mouth starting to move as though he had something else to say; Kim beat him to it.

“We’ll take care of him, Flyboy.” She smiled, her eyes starting to moisten again. “Get outta here. World ain’t gonna save itself.” He smiled his thanks and trotted out the door, which slid shut behind him, leaving Kim and Trini alone in the corridor. The two looked at each other, the reality of what they were walking into finally starting to sink in.

“He’ll be OK, Tri,” Kim said softly, wrapping an arm around Trini’s slender shoulders. “He’s the strongest person I’ve ever met. He’s gonna be fine.”

“That’s just it though, Kim,” Trini said. “He shouldn’t _have_ to just ‘be OK.’ This is something a normal person would need days, weeks, maybe even months to deal with, but for him – for all of us – we don’t have that kind of time. People in our line of work don’t get the luxury of an extended grieving process.” She sighed and cast a sad glance at the closed Med Bay door. “The only thing we’re gonna be able to do for him right now is make it easier for him to push this down, smooth it over and get back to work as though nothing was wrong.”

“Things are too chaotic for us to be thinking long-term, Tri. I don’t like it any more than you do but sometimes a Band-Aid solution is all you’ve got.”

“Jason’s been using Band-Aid solutions his entire life, Kim. At some point it’s gonna get to be too much and none of us are gonna be able to talk him off the ledge.” Trini started toward the door but seemed to think better of it and jerked to a stop, narrowing her eyes at Kim. “At this point I don’t think it’s a question of ‘if,’ it’s a question of ‘when.’ And considering this is Jason we’re talking about, I can only see two ways it could possibly happen. Either he completely loses control and he goes on some kind of berserker rampage or he just shuts down and turns into some kind of sociopath. What are we gonna do then?”

Kim closed the distance between them and laid a hand on Trini’s arm. “That’s not gonna happen, Tri. We won’t let it. Zordon won’t let it. It may get rough for a while but eventually we’re all gonna be OK.”

Trini flashed her a bemused smile and shook her head. “How can you be so sure?”

“Well it’s either that or the thing you said. Which one makes _you_ feel less like shit?”

“You have such a way with words, Kim,” Trini said with a soft laugh, wiping her eyes. “Come on, we should get in there. He shouldn’t be alone right now.”

She steeled herself and swung the door open before she could change her mind.


	11. A Shot Across the Bow

**“I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.”  
** **-William Tecumseh Sherman**

**Command Center  
** **Medical Bay  
** **Somewhere Outside Angel Grove, CA  
** **August 28, 2012  
** **8:25 PM PDT**

Trini hesitated in the entrance to the Med Bay, her hand still gripping the edge of the door as she took in the scene laid out before her. The room was eerily, almost grotesquely silent, the only noises the soft humming of the harsh fluorescent lights and the whirring of the medical equipment on the farthest table from her along the right-hand wall. That bed currently held the prone form of Jason’s father, a sheen of perspiration shining on his forehead despite the cool temperature of the Med Bay. Rick Scott’s eyes were open, his pupils darting nervously back and forth as they followed the automated appendages tending to his remaining injuries.

Jason sat on a stool at his father’s waist, slumped forward onto the table, his forehead resting in the crook of a folded elbow. His broad shoulders rose and fell gently, in that smooth, almost rhythmic way she knew to mean sleep. As Trini examined the scene, she noticed that Jason’s right hand was clasped around his father’s left; before she had time to think anything of it, though, Mr. Scott finally turned at the sound of the door opening. He lifted his head off the table and stared at Trini for a long moment, his eyes growing wide as the recognition began to take hold.

Trini felt something brush past her and heard a soft gasp and a muffled squeal of joy from Kimberly, who she’d almost forgotten was there. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from Jason’s father, but Trini could picture the visage of unabashed glee on her friend’s face. Mr. Scott jerked at the sound and frantically pressed a finger on his free hand over his lips; after a moment, he jabbed the same finger a few times in Jason’s direction and arched his eyebrows.

“Hey, girls,” he whispered, his expression softening. “It’s good to see you two.”

Trini felt a smile slowly begin to creep onto her face. “Good to see you, too, Papa Scott,” she replied softly, using the kids’ collective nickname for Jason’s father. He broke into a grin of his own at that, which seemed to trigger something in Kimberly. The pink-clad girl suddenly leapt forward, sprinting silently across the Med Bay and around the far corner of the bed to throw her arms around Mr. Scott’s neck, drawing in deep, shuddering breaths that were so erratic Trini worried she might start hyperventilating. Jason’s father gently wrapped his free arm around her trembling shoulders before turning back to Trini, a question in his eyes.

The girl in yellow finally got her feet to move. “Serves me right for expecting her to stay calm,” she joked gently, stepping gingerly toward her boyfriend and his father. Kim pushed back from Mr. Scott’s broad chest and sniffled.

“Well excuse me for not being a damn Terminator,” she grumbled playfully, shooting Trini a half-serious glare. Trini winked at her as she came to a stop next to the bed on the opposite side of Kim, very carefully resting a hand on Jason’s back. She leaned on the edge of the bed with her other hand and regarded Mr. Scott sadly.

“Tommy told us what happened,” she said, almost grateful for the need to be quiet; she didn’t think she could have said these words any louder if she’d wanted to. “I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am.” She glanced back at Jason. “Both of you.”

Kim wiped at her eyes. Mr. Scott nodded. “Thank you.” He examined the two young women solemnly. “I assume this means you two are…” he trailed off, but Trini could guess what he meant. She pulled her morpher out from behind her back and held it up to him. Kim just nodded. Mr. Scott sighed and closed his eyes for a moment. “Tommy told me about Zack.” Trini ran her tongue over her lips and put her morpher away. “I’m sorry too.”

The room was silent again for a long moment before Trini turned and regarded Jason again, her mouth going dry as she suddenly remembered why she was in there in the first place.

“Is he OK?” She spoke to Mr. Scott, but she never took her eyes off of his son. He stared at his son for several seconds, trying to put words to his thoughts.

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “For the first time in my life, I look at my own son and I have absolutely no idea what to think.” Kim glanced up at him, her face etched with obvious concern.

“He wanted to tell you, you know,” she whispered, leaning against the table. “If Jason had had his way, we would’ve told our parents everything on day one. He knew it would just put that much more extra pressure on us to have to lie to you every day; it was bad enough having our imminent horrible death hanging over our heads.” She looked down at Jason sadly. “He hated that lie more than any of us, even after he came to understand the reasoning behind it.” She paused, taking Mr. Scott’s hand in both of her own. “I don’t know what all he’s told you, but I promise you know him just as well as you always have.” She flashed him a wry smile. “You already knew he was a hero; all that’s changed is that you know his secret identity now.”

Mr. Scott licked his lips and slowly turned to Trini. “He’s not hurt physically, as far as I can tell. I’m honestly not certain what his emotional state is – after his breakdown back at the house he seemed to have really calmed down by the time we got back here, but then as soon as he started doing whatever he’s doing with his coin he seemed to get really tired really fast. I don’t know what he did but I’ve never seen him get that tired that quickly.”

One part of that instantly caught Trini’s attention. “He’s doing what with his coin – _shit_!” Her gaze snapped back to Jason’s right hand, still gripping his father’s for dear life; only this time, she didn’t miss the faint red sparks that still danced around the pair of clasped hands, the way Mr. Scott’s skin seemed to glow a very subtle shade of red. Kim finally noticed it too, and rolled her eyes with an exaggerated groan.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me.”

“Damn it, Jason,” Trini hissed, immediately going to work on prying the two hands apart. Mr. Scott sat bolt upright and yanked his other hand free from Kimberly.

“What are you doing? I thought Jason said that without that coin the machines wouldn’t work on me.”

“They’re basically done,” Kim replied, gesturing to the various apparatus that had stopped moving. “I don’t see anything that’s still bleeding, you’ll probably just be sore for a while.”

Trini was having no luck with prying Jason’s fingers loose. She slapped the back of Jason’s hand and wrist once, again, again, harder each time, and after that had no effect she threw her head back with an exasperated grunt.

“Oh, for the love of god,” she muttered. “Jason,” she said softly, giving his shoulder a gentle shake. “Jason? Come on, baby, I need you to wake up now.”

There was a split second where it seemed as though her efforts had had no effect; then Jason stirred, moaned quietly, and his eyelids fluttered open. His eyes took a moment to focus, blinking rapidly as he slowly began to become aware of the room. He craned his head back to look at Trini and grinned lopsidedly up at her.

“Hey, gorgeous,” he said, his words running together as though he’d had a few drinks. His expression suddenly became very somber. “You would not _believe_ the day I’ve been having.”

Trini reached up and gently cupped her hand around Jason’s cheek. “Jase, I need you to focus for me, OK? Can you let go of your dad’s hand?”

Jason’s head swung toward his father; there was something off about how it moved, as though it was pivoting on a ball bearing or something. “I’m not doing anything until I know he’s OK,” he said as firmly as he could. “Dad? You feeling any better?”

Mr. Scott cleared his throat and eyed his son warily, disconcerted by his dazed demeanor. “Yeah, buddy, I’m good. I think your friends need you more than I do right now.”

Jason blinked a few times and Trini realized he was struggling to keep his eyes open. “Jase, I’m serious, you need to open your hand.” The Red Ranger shook his head forcefully as though trying to clear it, and then, with what looked like a great deal of effort, he uncurled his fingers from around his father’s hand. His Power Coin clattered to the tabletop, the red sparks dissipated, and almost instantaneously, the machines ground to a halt.

“I may need a little help getting back to…my…” Jason trailed off and slumped forward again, just managing to catch his forehead in the crook of his arm again. Trini reached down, picked up the coin, put it back in Jason’s morpher and returned it to his belt; when she affixed the small piece of metal back in place, a shudder went through Jason’s unconscious form – Trini thought she even heard him let out a contented sigh.

Mr. Scott finally tore his bewildered gaze away from his son and spoke to Trini. “What the hell was that? What was wrong with him?”

Trini shot Jason a glare before responding. “By using his own coin to get the machines to work, he was siphoning energy from it into you without even knowing about it. And the only way for him to do that was to push the power out of his own body. That’s what caused that extreme onset of fatigue; if he’d gone on long enough he would probably have slipped into a coma or something.” She folded her arms and met Mr. Scott’s eye. “Now it’ll take at least a few hours before he’s able to morph again. I’d say about another thirty minutes before he’s completely alert and lucid.”

“Tommy’s gonna be pissed,” Kim said. “There’s no way we’re gonna be able to do this the way he wants to now.” Mr. Scott furrowed his brow at her, confused again.

“Jason said Tommy was handling this, he made it sound like it was just another routine you all had set up.”

“Yeah, but usually the person we’re pulling it on hasn’t gone through an almost complete power drain by the time we get to them,” Trini grumbled. “Tommy never pulled any stupid shit like this when we did it to him.” She glanced up at Kimberly, a grim resignation in her eyes. “You better go find him. We don’t have time to wait anymore; I don’t see any other option but to just let the floodgates open.” She glanced down at Jason. “Take Papa Scott with you; I’ll stay here until he wakes up.” Kimberly nodded and rose slowly to her feet, offering her hand to help Jason’s father off the table.

“Why the hell did your son have to be so damn stubborn?” She asked. But before he had a chance to answer, she turned to Trini and spoke again. “So much for keeping this quiet. If you hear a loud noise in the next few minutes, that’ll be the shit hitting the fan.” She looked back at Jason’s father and gestured toward the door. “Come on, Papa Scott. Let’s go ruin Tommy’s day.”

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Main Chamber  
** **8:35 PM PDT**

They made it as far as the Main Chamber before everything went to hell.

If Kim really thought about it, she supposed it could have gone worse – she and Jason’s father could have only made it to the Med Bay door and then suddenly found themselves under attack by a rogue squad of Putties. Or the power could have gone out. Or the entire Command Center could have been filled with a swarm of angry bees.

But her dreams from the last week aside, this was basically worst-case scenario. She had thought they’d be able to slip through the Main Chamber, sneak through the living quarters to Jason’s bedroom and at the very least find Mr. Scott a change of clothes. Unfortunately, Tommy had clearly not been as thorough with the gag order on this whole situation as he’d made it seem, because when the doors at the end of the Med Bay corridor opened, Kim found Kat, Tanya and Alpha staring back at her, the two human girls’ faces streaked with tears.

Mr. Scott opened his mouth to say something – probably one of the thousands of questions that no doubt flooded into his head all at once – but Kim beat him to it, striding angrily into the room.

“Kat, do Australians have some looser definition of the word “secret” that you’ve never told us about? Because in case Tommy was unclear – which, admittedly, no surprise there – here in America it means _don’t fucking tell anyone_.” Her eyes flicked to Tanya. “Wait – you two didn’t say anything to Billy, did you?”

“No, god no!” Tanya quickly assured her, holding out a hand as though to ward Kimberly off. “When I left the lab he was still finishing the autopsy, and he has the weapons to analyze and all of our other readings to go through –“

“Whoa, whoa, wait, hold up a minute,” Mr. Scott suddenly interjected, stepping up beside Kim. His eyes darted nervously from one of the young women in the room to the next, pointedly avoiding Alpha as best he could. “One of you please tell me that you don’t have Billy in there – my god, it’s Billy Cranston, isn’t it?” Kim nodded sheepishly. Mr. Scott had to take a breath to steady himself. “Please tell me you don’t have him in there… _dissecting_ Zack Taylor’s body?”

Kat and Tanya didn’t quite know how to respond. Kim shrugged. “It was his idea. We generally tend to defer to him on that kind of stuff; quite frankly, most of it’s a little over our heads.”

“No shit,” Mr. Scott grumbled in reply. “Forget for a minute the fact that all of you have just been through a trauma; last I checked, Billy Cranston is barely old enough to drink, let alone earn a medical degree. And you have him in there digging around in a dead body with what I’m guessing is some kind of alien Swiss Army Knife that could probably blow his head off with a laser at the slightest provocation. How-“

“Um, Mr. Scott?” This time it was Kat who interrupted. Mr. Scott turned to face her with a look that left no question about his displeasure at being cut off and raised his eyebrows expectantly. “All due respect, but you have no idea what you’re talking about. Billy built more than half the tools in that lab himself and he’s probably the smartest human left alive. To say nothing of the fact that he’s been a Ranger for almost four years and you’ve known that this place exists for all of about twenty minutes. I’m sure Jason’s told you this a dozen times, but you’re going to have to trust us here.”

Jason’s father blinked a couple of times but didn’t seem to know what to say in response. Kim stepped around the console Kat and Tanya were standing behind and addressed the blonde Australian, her tone much softer and less accusatory now. “So I’m guessing since Tanya and Alpha know, then…” she gestured behind her with her head. Kat grimaced and nodded as Zordon reappeared in the tube.

“Yes, Kimberly,” Zordon said. “Tommy informed me of the unfortunate situation. I would have said so sooner but I have been devoting all of my energies to monitoring the situation in Angel Grove Park.”

A soft whistle of appreciation drew everyone’s attention back to the door, where Jason’s father still stood, his arms crossed over his body defensively, staring up at Zordon in awe. He cleared his throat and took a moment to find his voice.

“So…who are you?”

Kim broke into a grin, despite herself. Zordon’s face was hard to read, but when he spoke, the smile could be heard in his voice. “Mr. Scott. Four years ago, an extraordinary young man stood in this very room and asked me that same question. I had thought I knew then the extent of his potential for heroism and leadership; he has spent every day since then proving how short I sold him.” The three young women smiled at one another. It was rare for Zordon to open up like this, especially where the Rangers were concerned. “That was the day I first met your son.” Zordon paused for a moment to let that sink in. “I will answer your question now the same way I answered him then. I am Zordon of Eltar, a wizard and warrior from a faraway planet who was trapped in this time warp by my enemy, Rita Repulsa, over ten thousand years ago. I now serve as a mentor and counselor to the Power Rangers, and it has been my honor to get to know your son over the last four years.” The old mage paused; Mr. Scott fidgeted nervously, clearly grateful for the kind words but unsure of how to react. Zordon’s next words were soft and solemn. “He has often spoken very highly of you. It pains me deeply to learn of your great loss today.”

Mr. Scott swallowed and cleared his throat. “T-thank you,” he said, shoving his hands into his pockets. “I’m still getting used to all this.”

“Zordon?” Kim broke in again. “Sorry to interrupt but is Tommy still in Adam’s room with the others? We should probably get all of them in here sooner rather than later.” She nodded grimly as Zordon answered in the affirmative and directed Alpha to summon the others, minus Billy, back to the Main Chamber. She turned and regarded her two comrades standing beside her. “Brace yourselves, everyone. Tommy’s not gonna like this.” She directed her next words toward Mr. Scott. “There’s no way we can do this the way he wanted to now.”

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Adam Park’s Private Quarters  
** **8:40 PM PDT**

“There’s no way we’re gonna be able to do this the way I wanted to now,” Tommy grumbled as Rocky and Adam’s presentation unfolded before him. Aisha turned from where she’d sat on an easy chair near the door and frowned at him, puzzled.

“Sorry, what?” At the sound of her voice, Adam perked up and set the remote for his monitor on the counter in his small kitchen area. Tommy glanced at Aisha before swiveling his head toward where Rocky and Adam stood in front of the wall-mounted screen.

“Seriously, would it have been too much to ask for you two to come up with this brilliant plan like twenty minutes ago?” Tommy gestured at the footage being displayed as he spoke, letting his feet slide off the edge of the table he’d propped them up on. “Would’ve saved me a hell of a lot of headache.”

Rocky glared at him and folded his arms across his chest. Adam just smirked and stepped toward him, casually sliding his hands into his pockets. “We could’ve told you about this an hour ago, Flyboy, but you and Jason were still out gallivanting around in the bombed out shell of what we used to call our hometown. Maybe if you’d come back sooner you could’ve saved _yourself_ all that headache.”

“What were you two doing out there for so long, anyway?” Rocky asked, his irritation at Tommy’s remark completely replaced by curiosity. “The rest of us were back for a long time before you two got here.”

“And what did you mean just then?” Aisha asked again, standing and stepping toward where Tommy sat. “You said something about _the way you wanted to do this_. What the hell does that mean? And how does this change that?”

Tommy hesitated. He’d just spent the better part of the last fifteen minutes trying to clamp down on anyone spreading the word about what had happened to Jason, and he’d thought when he did it that he’d had a good reason for doing so, but now a perfectly clear first strike option had been handed to him on a silver platter – and he couldn’t keep both things in the air at once. There was no way any strategist with two brain cells to rub together would ignore a lead like the one Rocky and Adam had just given him (and besides, wasn’t that what he was always telling them he needed them for in the first place?), but he was also handling Jason’s situation the only way he knew how, and he couldn’t see any way of going forward with this new plan without breaking his own gag order.

He sighed and closed his eyes, his mind reluctantly made up.

_Damn it. Sorry, Jase._ Tommy lifted his head and met Aisha’s eye.

“OK. I need to show you guys something.” Without another word, Tommy stood and strode out of the room, not even bothering to make sure the others were following him. At the door to the Main Chamber he paused, opened the door a crack and peeked through. His eyes widened in surprise and he stepped back into the corridor and blocked the doorway.

“Rocky,” he said, making eye contact with the other man. “You really want to know why Jason and I took so long to get back?” All Rocky could do was nod; Tommy nodded back, swung the door open and pointed into the Main Chamber. “That’s why.”

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Main Chamber  
** **8:45 PM PDT**

Kim, Kat, Tanya, Alpha 5 and Mr. Scott had all looked up at the sound of the door opening to find Tommy holding the door open for Rocky, Adam and Aisha, who followed Tommy’s extended finger to gape at Mr. Scott in shock.

“That’s why.” Tommy’s words echoed through the Main Chamber, which had immediately fallen into a stunned silence as the two groups encountered each other. No one seemed to know what to say for a long moment, until finally Kim groaned, rolled her eyes and leveled an exasperated look at Tommy.

“You know, you could at least have given us a chance to call you in here before you just came barging through the door.”

Tommy shrugged. “Hey, you know me, I like to be a couple steps ahead.” He stopped, suddenly noticing that Tanya and Jason’s father were in the room together. “Wait – you guys told Tanya about this without clearing it with me first?”

“Yes, Mr. Couple Steps Ahead,” Kat said with a snicker. “Just like you decided to tell those three completely on your own.”

Kim snorted good-naturedly. “Seriously, are you not even following your _own_ orders anymore, or what?”

Tommy winced, stepping aside to allow Adam, Aisha and Rocky through the door behind him, all three still staring at Mr. Scott with varying expressions of shock or bewilderment. “Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good?” He flung out one arm hopelessly to one side as the other let the door swing shut.

Kim raised an eyebrow. “I really hope that hasn’t been your battle strategy for long; I may never let you drive one of my Zords again otherwise.”

Adam glanced at Kim with a smirk, finally free of his shock at seeing Jason’s father. “You let other people drive your Zords?”

Kim’s face turned a very faint shade of red. “Kat does,” she said sheepishly, gesturing over her shoulder. The blonde Australian crossed her arms and scoffed indignantly.

“Only after you insisted on attaching a remote override code to my biometric profile!” She retorted with a laugh, stepping forward and jerking her thumb at Kim. “She’s the only person on Earth who can be a backseat driver from over a thousand miles away.”

“Yeah, because the first time you drove the Pterodactyl you sheared half the left wing off and it had to be in the shop for three weeks while Billy built a new one!” Kim pointed at both Kat and the door to the Zord hangar as she spoke; there were several soft gasps as she finished her sentence.

“Oh no she didn’t,” Tanya muttered under her breath. Kat narrowed her eyes at Kim and slowly raised an accusatory finger at her.

“Who told you about that?” She growled, her voice soft but thick with restrained fury. Kim didn’t even hesitate. She turned and pointed right at Rocky, whose face immediately drained of color.

“Kim!” He hissed at her. “What the hell?”

“If I’m going down I’m taking everybody with me,” Kim said, jabbing her finger at Rocky to punctuate her last few words. Rocky looked to Kat, who’d turned her glare on him, and raised his hands, palms out, in a placating gesture.

“Kat, in my own defense, you had only been on the team for like two weeks at that point and it was still kind of the ‘pick on the new guy’ period. If it makes you feel any better, I felt _really_ bad about it afterwards. It almost made it not even worth the fifty bucks she paid me to tell her the most embarrassing thing that had happened to you so far.”

That elicited even more surprised reactions. Kat whipped back around to face Kim again, her glare intensifying. “You did _what_?”

Tommy whistled softly, cracking a half-smile. “ _Damn_.”

Tanya’s eyes widened and she let out a small chuckle of surprise. “Oh _hell_ no.”

That was when Aisha decided she’d seen enough. As Adam and Tommy fought to keep the hysterical grins off their faces, she pushed past them and cleared her throat loudly. “As much as I hate to interrupt this potential white-trash-talk-show catfight, can someone please fill me in on exactly what Jason’s dad is doing in the fucking Command Center? I mean, no offense, Papa Scott, but we have more rules against letting parents in here than your typical middle school clubhouse.”

“Don’t you think Jason should be the one to tell us about that?” Rocky asked, glancing around the room, his joking demeanor from before instantly replaced with his all-business Ranger attitude. “Where is he, anyway?”

“And for that matter, where the hell is Trini?” Adam piped up, his eyes still twinkling but all the humor gone from his voice.

“Well, that’s obvious, isn’t it?” Aisha said. “I mean, they’ve got to be just waiting with the rest of Jason’s family, right?”

“The rest of Jase’s family isn’t here, Sha,” Tommy said, leaning against the wall of the Main Chamber and staring at the floor. “They, um…” he glanced up at Mr. Scott, who had been standing uncomfortably by the door to the Med Bay, watching the nervous banter and picking at the hem of his tattered shirt. “They…” Tommy started again but hesitated. Mr. Scott seemed to understand, and held up a hand to cut him off.

“It’s OK, Tommy,” he said softly. “I’ll tell them.” Tommy nodded grimly and ran a hand over his face. Mr. Scott turned to face the three new arrivals. “Our house was destroyed in the initial attack. Jason obviously wasn’t there and I had already left for work, but my wife and my other two boys were in there, and…” he trailed off and took a breath to steady himself. Aisha put a hand over her mouth and wrapped the other around her chest. Rocky put a hand on her shoulder from behind, both of them seeming to already know what was coming.

“They didn’t make it,” Mr. Scott finished, his voice steady but thick with fresh grief. “By the time we got there, there wasn’t much left.” He cleared his throat and rubbed at his eyes with his thumb and index finger. “I was hurt pretty bad, if you couldn’t already tell,” he continued, indicating his bloody pant leg and the fresh scar above his eyebrow. “Jason used power from his coin…thing to get the machines in your hospital to work for me, but I guess it took a lot out of him.”

“Not that much.” The door to the Med Bay suddenly swung open and Jason was there, looking a little groggy but having no trouble with movement or balance. Trini stood close behind him, as though she expected him to topple over at any second. “Hey, guys. We planning something?” Tommy nodded slowly. Jason returned it. “Awesome. Let me go take a couple aspirin and throw on a clean shirt and I’ll be right back.” As Jason moved toward the private quarters, everyone except Tommy, Kim and Trini stepped up to offer their condolences, but he brushed them off as politely as he could.

“Thanks, everyone, really, but we’ll have time to mourn later. All of your families and hopefully some of the rest of humanity is still alive down there. We should be focusing on the people we _can_ save right now.”

“Jase,” Tanya said softly, gently grabbing his forearm as he moved toward the doorway. “Are you sure you’re OK? Nobody would hold it against you if you needed some time to yourself.”

He stopped then, staring back at Tanya as though unsure how to respond, and for the briefest of moments they could see it: the pain in his eyes, the scared, devastated kid behind the calm, determined soldier forcing its way out for the first time in far too long, the unshed tears that begged for their chance to spill out. But just as fast as it had slipped, the leader’s visage was back. Jason patted Tanya’s hand with his own. “I’m fine, Tan. Honestly. It hurts like hell and not thinking about it might take a little concentration, but I know how important our job is. I can do it. I promise.” He smiled at her reassuringly, the same smile he’d flashed at his team before every football game, the one he’d casually toss across a crowded gym at Trini or Tommy when a karate match had turned in his favor. “Thanks, though. I mean it.” With that, he pulled out of Tanya’s grip and backed into the doorway when he suddenly seemed to remember something. “Hey, Dad, you wanna come with? I can try to find something that’ll fit you too if you want.”

“Dear god, yes,” his father replied with a small laugh, and followed Jason back through the door into the private quarters corridor, letting it swing shut behind them.

After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, Rocky finally spoke up. “So does anyone here actually believe for one second that he’s OK?”

“Nope,” Tommy said with a sigh.

“Not a chance in hell,” Aisha said, shaking her head.

“Doesn’t matter,” Trini interjected, stepping past Kim and Tanya to stand in front of Zordon’s tube. “He won’t be able to morph for at least another three hours, so whatever this first mission is that we’re running, he’s sitting out whether he likes it or not.”

“Trini is correct, Rangers,” Zordon said, finally breaking his silence. Eight somber faces, several of them streaked with tears, a few still smudged with grime, turned up to face him. “If Jason truly exerted enough power to render him unconscious, he will not be able to withstand the energy rush of a morph for several hours yet. Tommy,” he added, directing his gaze to the other half of the team’s field leadership. “If you are not comfortable with giving Jason the order to stay behind, I will do it for you.” Tommy nodded gratefully and Zordon’s visage altered in a way that could possibly have been a sad smile. “Very well.”

“Thanks, Zordon.” Tommy turned back to the others. “OK, now I know not all of you are on the same page with this, so I’m gonna let Rocky and Adam lay this out for us one more time. I think they can explain it better than I can.”

“Before we start,” Adam said, raising a finger. “Does this mean our idea has been officially approved?”

Tommy looked to Trini and the two original teammates exchanged a knowing nod. “Yeah, man,” Tommy said. “Sorry we don’t have time for your acceptance speech.”

Adam smiled and stepped forward to go through his and Rocky’s findings for a third time, but Kat held up a hand before he could start.

“Um, hey guys? Real quick before we start, shouldn’t Billy be in here to hear this? We don’t plan on excluding him from this, do we?”

“Not if we wanna have any hope of pulling it off,” Tommy said. “You want to go get him?”

“I wouldn’t advise that,” Tanya said as Kat moved to leave. “When I was in there before he told me the only people he would really feel comfortable talking to would be Jason or Tommy.” She made eye contact with the White Ranger. “So if anyone’s going to go talk to him, it ought to be you.”

“No need for that.” The gathered Rangers turned as one to see Billy standing in the doorway to the Science Labs, his surgical scrubs gone, wiping his hands on a towel too dark to show the color of the blood he’d just washed off. “I’m done in there for the time being. The body is on ice until we can perform a proper burial and my findings have been uploaded to the main computer, so I’m ready to go.”

Kat groaned and dug the heel of her hand into her eyes. “Bloody hell, does everyone around here have to sneak up on every conversation like they’re fucking Michael Myers? Billy, how long have you been standing there?”

“Long enough to know you all need me to save your asses,” Billy said with a chuckle. When nobody else laughed, he frowned. “You guys OK? You all look like someone else just died.” Several people cringed and Billy felt that knot in his stomach come back. “Goddammit,” he muttered. “OK. What did I miss?”

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Main Chamber  
** **9:10 PM PDT**

It took several minutes to bring Billy up to speed and then fill everyone in on Adam and Rocky’s idea; mostly because the young genius stopped the discussion every few sentences to ask questions, his eyes flicking back and forth as he filed away even the most minuscule details for potential later use. The conversation had wound to a close, and Tommy had just finished handing out assignments, when Jason reemerged from the private quarters, his face wiped free of grime, now wearing a Mike Trout jersey and a pair of white athletic shorts. His father followed, catching the door and letting it close softly behind him. Neither appeared upset, but the others couldn’t help but notice the unmistakable tension between them. As everyone split off to begin prepping for the mission, Jason stopped a few feet through the doorway and glanced around the room as the others looked up at him.

“OK,” he said, rubbing his hands together. “We gettin’ ready to wreck some shit?”

“Yeah,” Tommy said, bracing himself against a console with both hands. “Everything OK?” The others took that as their cue to make themselves scarce; it wasn’t long before the two leaders had the Main Chamber mostly to themselves.

“Yeah, man, I’m fine,” Jason replied dismissively, not even glancing in his father’s direction. “What’s the plan?”

“It’s a really long story that I’d really rather not have to tell again,” Tommy said. “But the basic idea is that the bad guys are building something on the moon where the palace used to be and they have a fuckton of guys gathered around up there to either protect it, or…something else.” Something clattered from the other side of the room and Tommy took a step back and rolled his eyes. “Goddammit, Rocky, if you make me come over there I swear to god you’ll be cleaning zords until you’re fifty.”

“Sorry!” Rocky called back sheepishly. Jason smirked. “These things are heavier than they look.”

“What you got him doing?” Jason asked softly, leaning his hip against the console.

“He’s helping Billy equip the zords for HALO jumps,” Tommy replied. At Jason’s significant look, he held up a hand. “Don’t even start. I know it’s a pain in the ass to keep putting those drop pods on and then taking them off again, but making them permanent attachments keeps sliding further and further down Billy’s to-do list.”

“You swore to me six months ago that that would be taken care of by the next time I came back,” Jason said. Tommy scoffed.

“How was I supposed to know the next time you came back would be in the middle of a fucking Roland Emmerich movie?”

Jason chuckled. “OK, fine. You were telling me the plan?”

“Yeah. Right. Anyway, what we’re thinking is two teams of four. One team dropping in to investigate the structure they’ve built and figure out what they want, the other staying airborne in the zords for air support and extraction.”

Jason nodded. “Smart. If there’s something up there they want, they’re probably going to have one of the big ships or some kind of battle fleet ready to protect it.” He stopped suddenly as a thought occurred to him. “Wait. Why only four zords? We have five that can fly; I see no reason why we should keep one grounded when we don’t have to. Besides, two teams of four is only eight people. Who’s gonna stay behind?”

_Damn it_. There it was. “Billy’s staying here to keep working on our readings planetside and the weapons we brought back. That’s one. And the other…” he trailed off, met Jason’s eye, and arched his eyebrows.

Jason frowned and shook his head vigorously. “Uh-uh. No way, there is no _fucking_ way you can ask me to just sit this one out.”

“Jase-“

“Those assholes just killed my family, Tom! How can you possibly ask me to-“

“He wasn’t asking, Jason.” The two turned as Zordon’s voice boomed through the Main Chamber. “You exerted an enormous amount of power in order to heal your father’s injuries, and while I understand your decision and applaud your bravery, your energy reserves have been dangerously drained. It will not be safe for you to morph for at least another six to eight hours; the massive influx of power could kill you.”

“That’s a risk I’m willing to take, Zordon,” Jason said, stepping forward.

“Not your call to make, Jase,” Tommy said softly into Jason’s ear. Jason turned and glared at him, but Tommy’s tone of voice didn’t change. “You know how this works, man. Any one of our orders can be overridden by either Zordon or the other leader plus Kim and Trini, and I can already guarantee you that both of them are on my side here.”

“Tommy is correct, Jason,” Zordon said, sounding much more like a general and far less like a father figure this time. “The decision is already made. You will remain here for the duration of this mission. That is an order. Are we clear?”

“God, you’re gonna make me say it, aren’t you?” Jason grumbled, running a hand over his face. “Yeah, Zordon, we’re clear.”

“Good. I expect to hear no further argument on the matter.”

Jason cocked his head to one side, already starting to smirk again. “What makes you think-“

“I know you.”

Jason managed to hold in his laugh until Zordon faded out to attend to other things. Tommy turned and narrowed his eyes at him. “You knew he was gonna do that already, didn’t you?”

“I had a feeling,” Jason said, still grinning. Tommy shook his head.

“So that whole thing just now was all for show?”

Jason shrugged. “No, I really am pissed about it. I’m just trying not to let it show.” Tommy frowned at him. “Come on, I have a reputation to overcome!” He smiled again and looked around. “I’ll let you get back to it.” He paused, peering over Tommy’s shoulder. “I think I’ll give my dad a tour of the Zord hangar. At the very least that should keep him out of your way.”

Tommy nodded. “Sure, man. Trini and Kat are in there running system checks and Billy and Rocky’ll be in and out. Everyone else is gearing up at the armory.”

“And what are you doing? You seemed pretty deep in thought when I got in here.”

“Oh, right, I meant to ask you about that. I wanted your advice on how we split things up. You know, who’s in the Zords and who’s jumping?”

Jason thought for a moment, staring fixedly at an imaginary point on the floor. “You’re not taking the Red Dragon, are you?”

This time it was Tommy who grinned knowingly. “Give me some credit, bro. I know you’re the only one who can fly that thing.”

“Damn right,” Jason muttered. “OK, in that case, here’s how I’d do it. We need the three best pilots in the air, which from where I’m standing is Kat, Kim, and you, in that order. I’d put Trini with the ground team; if Billy’s not going she’s the only one who can get us anything useful out of whatever they’re building. Put Aisha with her, from what I hear she’s taken to those orbital drops faster than anyone else here, even me.” Tommy raised an eyebrow.

“And if you tell her I said that I will murder you in your sleep,” Jason continued calmly. “Put Tanya with the ground team, too, she was getting really good at crowd control last time I was here and they may need to draw guards away from the structure. Beyond that…” he looked up at Tommy. “Adam and Rocky are basically a tossup.”

Tommy held up a finger. “Not as much as you’d think. This is the first time we’re ever gonna be taking the Crane, Firebird and Pterodactyl into battle at the same time, which means someone besides Kim or Kat will have to fly them…”

“…and neither of them trust Rocky to do it,” Jason finished for him. Tommy chuckled.

“Not that I blame them. This is the guy who managed to cause a six-car pileup with a MoPed.”

“He’s still never told me that story,” Jason said, almost to himself. “Maybe I could bribe Adam to do it.”

“Probably wouldn’t take much,” Tommy said. “Anyway, shouldn’t be too long before we’re ready to go. If you want to give your dad that tour I’d do it now while you have a chance.”

The two bumped fists and Jason trotted back to his father. Tommy watched Jason say something, gesturing excitedly toward the hangar, and his father nod and smile slightly himself. As the two of them disappeared out of the room, Tommy let out a long breath and turned to the new piece of equipment Billy had installed – the one that had reestablished communication…somehow – which he’d been examining when Jason walked in. He’d have to ask Billy about it later.

For now, though, he didn’t have time for looking gift horses in the mouth. Tommy shook his head, grunted in frustration, and jogged toward the door that led to the armory. Hopefully he could get there before Aisha “borrowed” his favorite grenade launcher again.

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Zord Hangar  
** **9:20 PM PDT**

Despite all the shit that had happened in the last few hours, as Jason stepped into the Zord Hangar he suddenly felt a surge of excitement, almost to the point of giddiness. He was practically bouncing on his feet, the laughter threatening to bubble up in his throat making it hard for him to speak clearly. _Boys and their toys,_ as Kim would say.

The look on his dad’s face helped. Mr. Scott was in awe, gazing around the massive room that spread out before them with an expression of pure amazement, like he was a kid on their first visit to Disney World. The door to the Zord Hangar opened onto a catwalk that wound around the upper level of the room, providing access to the top portions of the taller zords; another encircled the room at the mid-level, six stories down, with additional retractable walkways for maintenance and repairs. Another six stories down from that was the gleaming concrete floor, where Jason could make out the shapes of a couple of his friends moving from zord to zord. The door they entered from was situated on one end of a gigantic rectangular room that stretched out before them for almost two miles; the narrow end where they found themselves was about three-quarters of a mile across, as was the single enormous hangar door that opened onto the desert at the far end.

The room was illuminated by thousands of brilliant fluorescent bulbs that lined the ceiling from one end of the room to the other, giving off a faint hum that echoed all the way down to the floor. The zords were arranged below them in three rows, their massive figures casting imposing shadows along the walls and floor. Each zord stood next to its own individual console, like the ones in the Main Chamber, and between each row was an automated sidewalk like the kind they had in airports, to make the room’s length seem less intimidating. The upper walkway was equipped with the same technology, and it was onto one of these – the one that ran along the left wall – that Jason guided his father, making sure to stand so that his dad got an unimpeded view of the room below.

“Wow,” Mr. Scott finally said, swallowing several times. “They’re, uh…they’re a lot bigger up close.”

Jason smiled. “Would you totally flip out if I told you I was driving one of these before I had my own car?”

His father glanced sidelong at him. “I just might.” They exchanged a chuckle as his father turned and surveyed the room again. “I never realized there were so many.”

“That’s because we generally only use six at a time. We try to pick and choose which ones are best for any given mission but somehow we almost always tend to pick groups that can make a MegaZord together.” Jason steered his father onto the conveyor belt and hit the button to start it, letting it move them along the walkway toward the far end of the room. “We arrange these in here mostly by generation,” he said, doing his best museum tour guide impression. “The oldest ones in the back and the more recent ones closer to the door; doesn’t mean we don’t use them all, just makes them easier to keep track of.”

“How many are there?”

“Total?” Jason thought for a second. “Twenty-three. Six from each of the first three groups and five from the fourth.” He pointed at the far end of the room. “The exceptions to the generation arrangement are the zords that can fly, which we keep closest to the door.” He swung his arm out in a gesture meant to encompass the rest of the room. “There are only five of those; the rest, the ones that can’t fly, each have their own teleportation drives built in, so we can send them wherever we want…but their range only covers the planet. We have to take the flying zords if we want to leave the atmosphere with them.”

“So each of you is assigned one of these?” Mr. Scott asked. “Or can you just take any one at any time?”

“Theoretically, each zord is associated with a particular power, but we’ve created some of our own powers that don’t have a set zord, so we’ve kind of had to adapt,” Jason replied. “There’s this unspoken rule, though, that certain zords are almost always used by certain people, and everyone else only uses them in emergencies or with permission.” Jason pointed at the first two rows of zords. “Those are the original Dino Zords. When the first five of us got our powers, those were the zords we were given.” He pointed to each one in turn. “The T-Rex was mine, duh.” His father laughed softly at that. “The Triceratops was Billy’s, the Saber-Tooth Tiger was Trini’s, Kim’s was the Pterodactyl, it’s up front with the flyers, and the Mastodon…” He sighed. Seeing Zack’s beloved zord had suddenly brought all those feelings crashing back down. “That was Zack’s.” Jason smiled sadly. “He used to call it Jumbo.”

His father cocked his head. “You mean Dumbo, right?”

Jason laughed. “No, and you’re not the first person to ask that.” He moved on as the conveyor belt took them further along the wall. “The Dragonzord was Tommy’s originally, but after Tommy lost the Green Powers and we made a new version for Adam, it became his.” Now Jason gestured to the next set of giant machines. “These guys are the Thunder Zords, and my personal favorites. There are two flyers from this group, the Firebird and another that you’ll see later. The Firebird is Kim’s, and hopefully you’re seeing a pattern because she tends to always get the flying zords for some reason, and she tends to be kinda territorial about them. The only other person she usually lets fly them is Kat, and only because Kat’s grown into an even better pilot than Kim is, though I bet she’d castrate me for saying so.”

“She had another condition for allowing Kat to use them, if I heard right,” Mr. Scott said, folding his arms over his chest. Jason smiled at him knowingly and winked, but didn’t say anything about it.

“Trini can get that way, too, especially when it comes to the Saber-Tooth. In theory, other people are allowed to drive it, but in four years of doing this I’m almost positive nobody has,” Jason continued. “She’s less attached to the Thunder Zord she was originally given, the Griffin. Billy’s is a Unicorn – don’t ask – Zack got the Lion, and when Tommy rejoined the team he got the White Tiger.”

“Two tigers?” Mr. Scott shot his son a questioning look. “Doesn’t that get confusing?”

“No, but it can be a real pain in the ass.” Jason saw his father’s look and explained, “Tommy and Trini are currently engaged in a three-year pissing contest over whose tiger is better. It’s been the cause of so many arguments I’ve lost count; hell, whenever someone new joins up they immediately try to get them to pick one side or the other. The rest of us can’t even say the word ‘tiger’ without one of them flipping their shit. To this day, those are the only two zords we’ve never taken into battle at the same time; I’m honestly afraid they’ll start screaming at each other in the middle of battle and get somebody killed.”

They reached the third set of zords and Mr. Scott pointed to the nearest one. “Now these you’re gonna have to explain to me. I didn’t see these show up until after you left for Switzerland. How did these get here?”

Jason rolled his eyes. “These came from that one time when Tommy and the others decided to celebrate adding three new members to the team by accidentally letting an intergalactic war criminal wreck the Command Center and then tracking him to another planet and somehow bringing a whole new set of zords back with them.” His father started to ask another question and Jason shook his head. “And don’t ask me to elaborate on that because it’s been two years and I still don’t completely understand it.”

“Do you know whose is whose?”

“That much I know, yes,” Jason said, leveling a finger at his father. “Thanks for changing the subject, by the way.” He leaned over and pointed straight down over the railing at the nearest zord to them. “Dad, meet the Ninja Zords. Ninja Zords, Dad.” His father mock-waved at the dormant mechanical beasts and Jason went on. “The Ape is Rocky’s, the Bear is Aisha’s, Billy’s is the Wolf, Adam’s is a Frog – I know, I think it’s stupid too, but he loves it – and the other two are up front with the flyers. Kim got a Crane and Tommy got a Falcon.” The conveyor approached the next group.

“And then there’s these guys. I’m not super familiar with them, but they’re called the Shogun Zords, and the others got them from this weird guy who lived in a jar or a vase or something; the whole thing is a little goofy.” He pointed to each one in turn. “You have Red, Blue, Yellow, Green and White, for Rocky, Billy, Aisha, Adam, and Tommy and Kat, in that order.”

At this point, the conveyor belt had begun to approach the far end of the room, and a massive blood-red shape had begun to approach the walkway they now stood on. Mr. Scott raised a hand, as if to point and ask a question, but Jason plowed ahead.

“And last but not least, we have the flyers. Pterodactyl, Firebird, Falcon, Crane…” They finally drew even with the massive shape, easily the largest zord in the hangar, dwarfing even some of the other zords. “And this guy.”

“It’s… _huge_ ,” Mr. Scott breathed, amazed. “I mean, it’s more than huge, it’s…” he stammered for a minute before giving up. “I don’t know a word for something that big.”

“That’s what she said,” Jason said with a laugh. “Dad?” He swung his arm out majestically. “Meet the biggest, most versatile, most heavily armed, and if I do say so myself, the sexiest zord in our fleet. Longer than three football fields, bigger around than three cruise ships, enough living space for over twenty people; five million tons of braided Eltarian steel, eight fission-powered warp drive engines, enough firepower to blow up an entire solar system, and the ability to shapeshift into a humanoid Warrior Mode like our own personal Transformer. As far as I’m concerned, this is the crown jewel of our zord fleet and possibly the single most powerful weapon within a hundred light-years. The Red Dragon Thunder Zord.” He reached out over the railing and patted the monstrous zord on the head like a puppy. “I call it Max.”

His father finally managed to tear his eyes away from the zord to look at him. “You never let anyone else drive him, I’m guessing?”

“No one else _can_ drive him. I’m the only one who’s ever managed to get this baby to work. It’s kind of a point of pride.” Jason hit a button on a control panel attached to the railing and the belt began moving back the way they’d come. “Now I want to give you an example to answer your question from before. Since Rocky replaced me on the active team when I left the country and our powers are just different shades of the same color, we’ve worked out a way to share the zords that go with them.” He pointed at different zords as he talked about them. “We share the T-Rex and the Red Shogun Zord, and Kong over there is just his, but Max…” he grinned smugly. “Max is all mine.”

“They put weapons like this in the hands of teenagers.” It wasn’t a question, just a statement heavy with disbelief. Mr. Scott turned back to look at his son again and shook his head. “No offense, you kids have done an incredible thing here, but whoever’s idea it was to thrust this on you is certifiable.”

“You can tell that to Oz the Great and Powerful in there yourself when we get back.” Jason’s eyes suddenly lit up. “Much as I’d love to stay and watch liftoff, you can’t morph and the heat from the thrusters alone would boil the acid in your stomach from ten miles away. Besides,” he stood a little straighter and fixed his eyes determinedly on the door back to the Main Chamber. “I just thought of a way I can be a part of this thing after all. And I won’t even have to leave the building.”

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Armory/Supply Depot  
** **9:20 PM PDT**

Adam met Tommy in the hallway outside the door to the armory, a blaster rifle resting on his right shoulder and a belt of photon grenades looped around his neck. Tommy could see the door into the armory standing open behind him, the clinical white light that illuminated every room in the Command Center shining out into the corridor.

“Hey,” Tommy said, raising a hand. Adam stopped and raised an eyebrow at him. “Aisha’s not gonna steal all my favorite shit again, is she?”

Adam smiled. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think she stole it the first time. We’d only been here two weeks and you just happen to be attached to all the coolest-looking shit. Besides, it’s not like you wrote your name on any of them.” He adjusted his grip on the rifle and moved to walk past Tommy toward the Zord Hangar. “It’s funny, all this high-tech alien weaponry and equipment and even after four years no one’s thought to make a Target run for a fucking label maker.”

“I’m going to choose not to take that as a personal dig,” Tommy said over his shoulder to Adam’s back. As he approached the open door he heard Tanya’s voice from inside. She was singing softly, the lyrics floating out over the sounds of firearms being loaded and supply cases being opened and closed. He vaguely recognized the song; he thought it was something he’d heard Kim listening to once.

“ _He woke up from dreamin’/and put on his shoes/started makin’ his way past two/in the morning/he hasn’t been sober for days…_ ”

Tommy stopped in the open doorway and knocked lightly on the outside of the wall. Tanya gasped softly and spun around, nearly dropping the blaster she was holding. When she saw him, she smiled sheepishly and cleared her throat.

“Tommy,” she said with a nervous laugh. “You startled me.”

“Sorry,” he said, laughing gently himself. He nodded toward her. “You uh…you wanna maybe point that thing someplace else?”

Tanya glanced down and realized that the blaster she was holding was aimed directly at Tommy’s stomach. Her eyes went wide and she whipped it to one side, laughing anxiously again. “Oops. Sorry.”

Tommy let his arm drop and stepped into the room. “Little nervous?”

Tanya set the weapon down on the shelf in front of her and ran a hand through her hair. “Is it that obvious?”

“It wouldn’t have been if you hadn’t almost just gone all Lee Harvey Oswald on me.” Tommy leaned against the open door and cast a quick glance around the room. “Where are Kim and Sha?”

“I’m right here.” Tommy spun around as Kim stepped out from behind a shelf, a thick black duffel bag over one shoulder. She had strapped a handheld blaster in a holster around her right thigh and fastened a wrist-mounted grappling hook to her left arm. “And you just missed Sha. She went running back to the Main Chamber after I showed her where you hid all your favorite stuff.”

He glared at her, folding his arms over his chest. “You did _what_? Why the fuck would you –“

“You see all this?” She interrupted, motioning towards him, her voice laced with amusement. “How annoyed you are right now?” She threw him a wry smirk. “That’s why.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, his mind already calculating his payback. “Hey Tan?” Tommy’s eyes never left Kim’s. “Could you take that bag that Kim’s holding and go help Adam load up the zords? We don’t have much time before we have to go.”

“Uh…sure, OK,” Tanya said, stepping forward and holding out her arm. Kim slowly lowered it off her shoulder and passed it off to the other girl, who had started to feel like she was standing on a fault line as the ground began to rumble. She snatched the bag away from Kim and trotted out the door, rolling her eyes as she jogged down the hallway.

_This is going to be a lot more difficult if those two don’t leave that room with all their limbs intact._ Suddenly the idea had become a frightening possibility.

When Tanya had gone, Tommy turned back to Kim and put his hands in his pockets. He let out a long breath and looked sadly at her. “You picked a hell of a time to develop a petty streak.” His voice was quiet, almost gentle. He was tired of yelling.

She leaned her shoulder against the shelf and crossed her arms. “We don’t really have time for the lecture, do we?”

“What we don’t have time for is you fucking with me purely out of spite. In case you haven’t noticed things have gotten kinda life and death around here and I’d rather have you helping me than throwing a fit like a damn toddler.”

Kim pushed herself off the shelf and glared at him. “The fuck do you care how I spend my time? I think we’ve pretty well established by now exactly how much you value my help.”

He stared at her for a long moment before grunting in frustration and running a hand over his face. “All right. You know what? Fine. I don’t know what the fuck I did that has you so pissed off but whatever it is, I don’t give a shit anymore. So be mad at me all you want, waste as much of your effort as you want stewing over whatever the hell started all this, but I swear to fucking god, Kim, if you get in the way of me doing my job one more time you’ll wish an apocalyptic alien invasion was the only thing you had to worry about.”

To his surprise, instead of looking hurt or angry, Kim let out a small chuckle, the edge of her mouth twitching upward into a small hint of a smile. “I was wondering how long it would take you to tell me to go to hell.” She stepped forward and put a hand on his arm. “Let me be clear; I’m having a hard time just being in the same room with you right now. But you’re right. I have better things to spend my time on. We both do. So for now…” she held out a hand. “I can agree to be professional if you can.”

He eyed her warily but took her hand in his own. “Deal.” They let go and he jerked his head toward the doorway. “Now go find Aisha and tell her to bring back my stuff.”

She cocked her head to the side. “What? Why should I?”

Now it was his turn to smile. “You know, I’ve almost got the teams all picked out for this mission. You, me and Kat in the zords, Aisha, Trini and Tanya on the ground team. But I just can’t decide who to put in that last zord. So I’m leaving it up to you.” She frowned in confusion and he stepped toward her so that their noses were almost touching. “You go find Sha and bring my stuff back right now, and I’ll put Adam in that last zord. If you don’t…” he grinned devilishly at her. “I will not hesitate to have Rocky drive the Pterodactyl.”

She went white. “You wouldn’t.”

“Watch me.”

She studied his face for several seconds, as if trying to figure out if he would follow through on it. Finally she took a step back and rolled her eyes. “OK, OK, fine.” She turned on her heel and stomped toward the door.

“Have her meet me in the Main Chamber in five,” he called over his shoulder. Kim stalked out of the room, grumbling under her breath. Tommy turned back and glanced around the now-empty armory, listening to the buzz of the overhead fluorescent lights, his heart pounding in his ears.

“Well _that_ was fun.”

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Main Chamber  
** **9:30 PM PDT**

_If there was anything good about not getting to go along on this mission_ , Jason thought to himself, _it’s being able to watch how we work from the outside._ From where he found himself, propped up on a console in the Main Chamber, his feet lazily swinging against the paneling, he had a front-row seat to watch the bustle of activity that was the pre-mission preparations that he usually never got to see because he had a billion other things to do at once. Letting a long breath out through his nose, Jason leaned back on his hands and glanced around the room.

Only a few feet away from him, Billy was on his knees next to a control panel, one hand resting on the floor, the other holding the flashlight he was using to examine something inside the console; Jason didn’t know for sure, but he would’ve guessed that had something to do with shoring up communications. Across the room, Adam and Tanya emerged from the door leading to the armory, a large black duffel bag and several impressive looking weapons carried between them, and crossed the main chamber without acknowledging him, talking quietly to each other as they walked through the door to the Zord Hangar.

As the door closed behind Adam and Tanya, Jason turned his gaze toward the other side of the room just in time to see Rocky come barreling through the door from the private quarters, his eyes jerking frantically around the room as though he was searching very intently for something. He opened his mouth to speak just as Kat appeared from the Med Bay, carrying a small black object in each hand.

“Hey, has anybody seen my-“

“You left it in the Med Bay,” Kat interrupted, tossing Rocky one of the small objects without ever breaking stride and tossing Jason a wink.

Rocky smiled sheepishly and spun on his heel, shouting his thanks to Kat over his shoulder as the door slid shut behind him. Kat approached Billy and knelt beside him, but before either of them could say anything, Aisha came storming through the door from the Hangar with two very imposing looking weapons slung over her shoulders and what looked like a box of ammo visible beneath the waistband of her pants.

Kat called out to her with no attempt to hide her amusement. “Hey Sha, who pissed in your cornflakes?”

“No time,” Aisha grumbled. As she approached the door to the armory, it opened and Tommy and Kim walked through it, both pointedly ignoring the other. Aisha pulled everything she was carrying into one bundle and shoved it into Tommy’s chest as they walked by, muttering angrily under her breath as she disappeared down the hallway. Jason thought he heard something that sounded like “dumbass white boy” before she turned the corner.

Tommy had staggered to a stop when Aisha shoved her bundle into his chest; Kim acted like she hadn’t seen anything, striding purposefully past Tommy toward the Hangar door.

Jason knew what he was about to say was in poor taste. He knew he shouldn’t have said it, especially with his father standing right behind him. But dammit, the world was falling apart anyway, and he couldn’t help himself.

“So you guys work all this shit out yet?” He asked as Kim walked in front of him, glancing from one of them to the other. “Or are we gonna have to go batten down the hatches for the Great Hart-Oliver Break-Up Fuck Part 3?”

Before Tommy or Kim could do more than shoot him a dirty look, Billy, of all people, spoke up from where he knelt by the console. “You’ve been gone longer than you think, Jase; I think we’re actually up to about Part 5 by now.”

Jason let out a loud, sharp laugh of surprise. Tommy and Kim’s faces had both turned the color of his uniform, their twin glares now focused on Billy as he rose to his feet and brushed himself off. “I’m gonna go double-check the HALO rigs,” the young genius said, turning to leave with an amused smirk.

“Hey, Billy,” Jason suddenly called out, hopping down off the console he’d been perched on. “Where’d you put the holographic display module?”

Billy kicked a leg out behind him and tapped the front panel of one of the consoles as he walked by. The panel swung open and a small black sphere dropped out onto the Main Chamber floor. “Right there.” He stopped and glanced at Jason over one shoulder. “Can you even _spell_ ‘module?’”

“There’s a ‘d’ in there somewhere, right?” Jason bent over to pick up the small orb as the two young men shared a laugh. Billy turned to follow Tommy and Kim into the Zord Hangar just as Trini came through from the other side.

“Not to sound too Team Mom here, but are you guys almost ready to go? We gotta get this show on the road,” the Yellow Ranger said, rubbing her hands together impatiently. Jason finished attaching the display module to the console in front of him and stepped back as it powered up.

“Anybody remember what zord this thing is connected to?” He spoke over a few grumbled words of assent as people answered Trini and began filing into the Hangar to prepare for takeoff.

“Last I checked we had it synced to the Pterodactyl,” Kim said, not waiting for him to acknowledge her response as she disappeared through the doorway. Jason stopped Tommy before he could follow her.

“Which will be driven by who, again?”

Tommy snorted and rolled his eyes at him. “Adam, you smartass little prick. Can we go now?” He shifted his armful of weapons from one arm to the other as if to remind Jason that he was still holding them.

Jason smirked. “Sure, buddy. Go kick some ass. And hey,” he started to add as Tommy turned to leave. “Don’t die out there, OK?”

Tommy cracked a small smile himself. “Come on, bro. It’s me.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of,” Jason said to Tommy’s retreating back, relishing in the knowledge that his friend’s hands were too full to give him the finger. The Red Ranger chuckled and turned to Trini, who had come up beside him when Tommy walked away. “That goes double for you.”

“ _Me?_ ” Trini gasped in mock outrage, affecting an exaggerated Southern accent. “Why, Mr. Scott, I didn’t know you cared.”

“I’m caring less and less the longer this conversation takes,” Jason retorted wryly. “Now go blow some shit up.” She grinned and leaned forward and he kissed her briefly on the mouth.

“Love you,” she said softly.

“You too,” he answered, smiling. She gave him a little wave and jogged past him out the door, Aisha tailing behind her just as Billy came back in from the other side. Jason strode back over to the console, feeling his father’s amused gaze with every step he took. “Don’t you say a word,” he said without daring to look his father’s direction. He pressed a few buttons to activate the imaging software before suddenly pausing for a moment and shouting toward the door to the private quarters. “Move your ass, Rocko, or they’re gonna leave you behind!”

Rocky came bolting through the door just as the imager activated and surrounded Jason in a digital layout of the Command Center and the surrounding landscape in orange wireframe. Grinning, and stepping agilely out of the way as Rocky sprinted by, Jason kicked off his shoes, cracked his knuckles, threw on a headset with a microphone, raised his right hand in front of him and snapped his fingers. The display around him began to display statistical readouts; temperatures, distances, coordinates, the number of lifeforms within the scanner range. The list went on. Billy looked up from his place at the controls and said, “Jase, they’re about ready to take off.”

Zordon chose that moment to shimmer back into the room. He didn’t say anything, and nor did Alpha, who was still tinkering away at the opposite row of consoles from Jason and Billy, but both of them were obviously paying very close attention to the proceedings.

“I’m ready when they are, Bill,” Jason said. “We got communications up?”

Billy flipped a switch. “Yep. You’re live, Big Red.” Jason’s father raised an eyebrow at the nickname but didn’t say anything.

Jason smiled as background noise from the various zord cockpits filtered through his headset. “OK, boys and girls,” he said cheerfully, flexing his fingers in anticipation. “Let’s rock this shit.”

“Initiate launch sequence,” Tommy said; Jason could hear the rumbling of the zords’ engines starting up.

“Activate your stealth units prior to takeoff,” Billy advised, strapping on a headset of his own. “We want to keep these guys from seeing you for as long as we can.”

“Copy that,” Kim said brusquely. There were a few muffled clicks as switches were flipped. “Firebird set for takeoff.”

“Sounds like Kim’s a few steps ahead already,” Tommy chided playfully. “Everyone else, check in.”

“Crane set for takeoff,” Kat said, her excitement audible.

“Pterodactyl ready to go,” Adam chimed in. “And by the way, I think I could totally rock this color.”

“Falcon locked and loaded,” Tommy said through a laugh. “I just had an image of you in pink spandex, Adam.”

“Oh horror of horrors,” Tanya said with a shudder. “Some things you just wish you could _un_ -see.”

“Opening hangar doors,” Billy said, a trace of laughter in his own voice. “Everybody prepare for liftoff in T-minus twenty seconds.”

“Hey Adam, while we have a second,” Jason said. “Activate the holographic imaging scanner in your cockpit, would ya? It’ll be the one thing that’s _not_ pink, I know how much you hate that.”

“Only you would insult someone and ask them for a favor in the same sentence, Big Red,” Adam joked back, but he activated the unit and did a quick preliminary scan. The readout in front of Jason now displayed each of the four active zords as they sat in front of the still-opening hangar door; pulsating orange dots indicated life signs in each cockpit where the driver sat, and each zord also had an additional life sign inside the main body, near the back. This was the ground team, and Jason suddenly realized something he’d overlooked.

“T-minus ten seconds,” Billy said. Jason cleared his throat and hovered a finger over the extra life sign in the Falcon Zord.

“Hey, ground team,” he said, not sure who to address the question to. “Who’s in which zord? I wanna mark my display so I can track you.”

One by one, the ground team responded. With each answer, Jason poked the flashing dot with a finger and the person’s name popped up on the display.

“Falcon.” That was Trini.

“Firebird.” Aisha. Of course.

“Crane.” Tanya.

“Pterodactyl,” said Rocky. “Because apparently Adam is the only person driving a zord who isn’t mad at me right now.”

“Give it time,” Adam shot back; this elicited laughter from several people that nearly drowned out Billy’s countdown.

“T-minus five,” Billy was saying. “Hangar doors open. Three. Two. One.”

“ _Gun it!_ ” Tommy exclaimed, the huge grin he wore evident in his voice. As one, the four zords blasted their thrusters forward at maximum power and the quartet of massive robotic birds rocketed into the California night sky. The hangar door closed behind them, the Command Center’s defenses filling in a hologram of the surrounding mountains over it.

Jason caught his father’s eye and pointed to a console near where Alpha was working. “There’s an extra headset under that panel if you want to listen in. But try and stay quiet, OK?” His father nodded and went to grab the other headset. Jason turned back to the wireframe display. “Hey, ground team, you guys should make sure you’re totally prepped to jump before you get there. We don’t know when we’ll find our ideal drop site.”

“Copy, Big Red,” Rocky answered, sliding open the door to the pod on the bottom of Adam’s zord and double checking his equipment.

“There’s that nickname again,” Jason’s father said. “Why haven’t I heard them call you that until now?”

“That’s from the old days,” Trini replied before Jason had a chance. “Billy was paranoid about using our real names at the beginning because he wasn’t sure how secure our communication lines were, so Jason had us all come up with callsigns for ourselves for times like this. His was the only one that stuck.”

“But seriously, Big Red?” His father asked skeptically. “Like…the gum?” That got a laugh from several of the others and a groan from Jason.

“Only because they all refused to call me Red Leader.” His father rolled his eyes in amusement and another round of laughter came through the speakers. “Hey, it could’ve been worse,” Jason said defensively. “I could’ve just made you all call me ‘Sir.’”

“Sure, you could’ve,” Tommy said. He paused. “Guys, rough estimate, if Jason had done that, how many missions would it have taken before you murdered him in his sleep?”

“I probably could’ve lasted two or three,” Billy said.

“Two. Maybe,” was Trini’s reply.

Kim snickered. “His ass would’ve been dead from friendly fire before his first mission with Zack was even over.”

Jason whistled softly. “Wow,” he said. “Learning a lot of people’s true colors today. Adam, Rocky, Kat, somebody help me out here. Red Leader isn’t so bad as a callsign, right?”

There was a moment of silence before Rocky finally said, “Hey, can somebody hand me a ten foot pole that I can not touch this with?”

Kat chimed in next, trying to be diplomatic. “Tensions are running a little high as it is, Big Re- er, Jase. I think it’s safest if we don’t take sides here.”

Jason shook his head, an expression of mock disappointment on his face. “Assholes,” he muttered, rolling his eyes. “I am fucking _surrounded_ by assholes.”

“Boy wants to use a callsign from a damn _Star Wars_ movie and _we’re_ the assholes,” Aisha piped up. That was met by an uproar of laughter from nearly everyone present; all Jason could do at that point was shake his head again and sigh with frustration.

“OK, everyone, much as I love giving Jason shit, we’ll be approaching the moon in a couple minutes,” Tommy said, suddenly serious. “Everybody run one last check, make sure you’re good to go.”

“You guys should probably try to drop as close to the structure you saw as possible. The less open ground you have to cover, the better,” Jason said, running what checks he could through the scanner. “Once the ground team is away, Adam, break off and get me a scan of the area so I can keep an eye on things; the other three should circle a few times to provide air support in case they have some kind of attack fleet or something. At the very least you can provide an early warning if the big ship starts launching shit. Don’t forget about your emergency weapons if anything goes tits up. As for the ground team-“

“Uh, Jase?” Tommy interrupted. “Remind me again who’s technically in charge of this mission and who’s supposed to be sitting out?”

Jason smirked. “OK, everybody, welcome to Tommy’s first day of Leader School, today’s lesson is ‘delegating.’ Mr. Oliver, would you like to take over from there?”

Over the assorted snickers, Tommy cleared his throat and answered. “Right. Anyway, ground team. First priority is recon on that structure; we need to know what it is, what they’re hiding inside it and, if possible, some idea what they want to do with it. Trini, that’s you. Rocky, you’re in charge down there. Keep an eye on things and stick to Trini like glue. If things get bad don’t hesitate to call for an emergency extraction. If what you find in that structure is in any way concerning, get ahold of a zord and have them blast the fuck out of it. Tanya, Sha, you guys’ job is pure chaos. Once Trini gets to the structure, you two draw as much attention to yourselves as possible, wreck as much shit as you can, and keep your comms open so Billy can teleport you out if you get overwhelmed.”

“Copy, Tom,” Rocky said.

“And for those of you who laughed at Big Red’s last little remark, my retribution will be swift and merciless,” Tommy added in the exact same tone of voice. Everyone laughed again, trying to put as much levity into this very serious situation as they could.

“Hey, Billy,” Aisha said. “Could you run one more check on my life-support? I’m afraid I might drown in the literal flood of testosterone we’ve got goin’ on here.”

“Keep Sha away from the Y chromosomes, people,” Rocky interjected. “I think she smells blood in the water.”

“Hey, Big Red,” Adam said, still chuckling softly. “I’m gonna try and do a scan from here just to give you something to work with. See if anything comes through.”

The wireframe image around Jason suddenly transformed into a three-dimensional representation of the moon and the surrounding space. Jason grinned and went immediately to work, reaching into the display and manipulating the objects inside. He took the image of the moon between his thumb and index finger on both hands and pulled them apart to enlarge the image. He then swiped a hand across the image, which made the moon rotate as his hand went by. Unfortunately, the scan had been taken from too far away, and thus wasn’t clear enough to observe anything in great detail. Jason frowned, but didn’t stop. He reached for the image of each zord where they flew in a single horizontal line through space, and took each life sign indicator dot between his fingers. One at a time, he pulled those dots to the upper left corner of the display and snapped his fingers. Doing this made the dot reappear where it had just been and brought up a small readout with the person’s name in the corner, along with an audio wave indicating their communication status and another line that showed their vital signs. Soon there were eight of these small displays running down the left side of the display, the zord drivers at the top and the ground team at the bottom.

“Appreciate the effort, Adam, but you’re still too far away to show me much,” Jason said when this was done. “All I can make out is the big ship in the background and what looks like the remains of the palace, but I can’t get any greater detail from here. You’ll have to take another scan after the drop. Sorry.”

“Copy that, Big Red. No worries,” Adam replied; Jason heard him tap a few other buttons to ready the equipment for another scan.

“OK, guys,” Tommy said softly, his voice somber. “We should be over the structure in about thirty seconds. Prep for HALO jump.” He paused, hit a few switches, and spoke again, deadly serious. “This one’s for Zack.”

No one said anything for several seconds until Rocky broke the silence. “ _Vaya con Dios, mis amigos_. Now let’s go fuck some shit up.”

“Amen,” Kat said, her hand hovering over the release lever. “Rock, you should’ve been a preacher.”

“The F-bombs would certainly have made _my_ Sunday School more interesting,” Kim added with a giggle. “Firebird awaiting order to release.”

“Ditto for Crane,” Kat said.

“Pterodactyl ready,” Adam chimed in. “Say the word and we’ll Hiroshima these assholes.”

“Falcon zord ready to drop,” Tommy finished. “Never thought I’d hear someone use _Hiroshima_ as a verb.”

“What can I say? I’m creative.”

“All right, everyone,” Billy said loudly. “If my calculations are correct, you’re almost over the drop zone, but I can’t be a hundred percent from here. Tommy, you have visual contact, I’ll let you make the call.”

“Copy,” Tommy said simply, his fingers gripping the lever in his cockpit. He took a long, slow breath to ready himself. They’d only have one shot at this, and once they pulled those levers, there was no going back. “Activate HALO jump pods in five.”

Kat’s fingers curled around her lever as Tommy’s voice rang in her ears.

“Four.”

Aisha bounced on her toes, rolling her neck and stretching her arms as she readied herself for the drop.

“Three.”

Kim closed her eyes, feeling the smooth metal of the lever under her fingers, and tried to psyche herself up.

“Two.”

Rocky adjusted his helmet, made sure his Heads-Up Display looked right, and crossed himself, more out of reflex than anything else.

“One.”

Trini and Tanya began tapping their feet impatiently on the floors of their drop pods.

“Drop.”


	12. The Reckless and the Brave

**“It doesn't take a hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who goes into battle.”  
** **-Norman Schwarzkopf**

**“No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.”  
** **-Colin Powell**

**Crane Zord Cockpit  
** **Several Hundred Miles Above the Moon’s Surface  
** **August 28, 2012  
** **10:00 PM PDT**

“Drop.”

Tommy’s voice still ringing in her ears, Kat curled her gloved fingers around the lever on her console and yanked it toward her, feeling her zord rock slightly as the detachable pod tucked under its massive right wing popped open and deployed its cargo. She tugged gently on the controls to compensate for the sudden change in weight and shoved the throttle forward, zooming ahead along the drop zone.

“Crane Zord drop successful,” she reported, trying to keep her voice as businesslike as possible against the surge of adrenaline that bubbled up inside her every time she flew. She vaguely heard Tommy, Adam and Kim confirm their own successful drops as she broke formation and angled herself away from the Moon’s surface.

Gazing out into the vast expanse of space that stretched out to infinity before her, Kat’s well-trained eyes darted back and forth across her field of view, looking for anything that might be cause for alarm.

“Anyone see anything?” Tommy’s voice came through again. Kat flicked a switch to the right of the throttle and watched as her center console screen flashed to life. A digital, semicircular wave swept out over the screen, passing over pieces of space junk and her fellow zords without much incident.

“Nothing here,” Kim responded.

“I’m still circling around to get Jason an optimal shot of the layout,” Adam chimed in. “But for what it’s worth, I don’t see anything eith- wait,” he suddenly stopped, and Kat frowned inside her helmet, still glancing between her radar readout and the windshield. “Do you guys hear something?”

“What?” Kim said with a small laugh of disbelief. “Adam, what the hell are you-“

That was when the rest of them suddenly noticed it, all at once. There was a small, but persistent sound coming through their communication lines. She had to strain her ears to hear it, but Kat could swear there was something regular about the sound, almost as if…

Jason groaned loudly and Kat could tell he’d beaten her to the punch. “Tommy, Sha, you guys know what this is, right?”

There was a beat, and then Tommy and Aisha simultaneously let loose groans of their own.

“Aw, crap,” Tommy grunted. “Not this again.”

“Motherfucker,” Aisha muttered in annoyance. “I’ve told him and told him about this.”

“Hey, Dr. and Mrs. Cryptic?” Kim piped up. “You wanna fill the rest of us in?”

Jason did it for them. Kat could practically hear him shaking his head as he spoke. “Rocky’s playing Dragonforce in his helmet again and it’s so loud it’s causing feedback on the comm frequencies.”

Kat snorted. “And he clearly hasn’t heard any of us this whole time. He’s probably off in his own little world right now. Adam, Sha, any ideas on how to get through to him?”

“Already on it, Kat,” Billy suddenly said. He paused for a moment. “Oh, um…you guys might want to switch off comms for the next four or five seconds.” The evil smirk Billy wore was evident in his words; Kat felt no desire to tempt fate right now. She quickly reached up and tapped her helmet over her left ear, counted silently to seven just to be safe, and tapped it again.

When her comms came back on Rocky was already yelling.

“ _Hijo de puta_ , Billy! You almost made me fuck up my landing trajectory!” Rocky’s voice was strained, as though he’d just been badly startled. 

Trini had been laughing hysterically in the background from the second Kat’s comms came back up; she finally took a couple of deep breaths and said, “Wait, don’t tell me. He overrode your internal speaker system and pumped in some kind of godawful death metal or something?”

“Worse,” Rocky said solemnly, still a little shaky. “Dubstep.” Kat heard more loud laughter and a loud smacking sound she assumed was Jason slapping Billy high five. “Seriously, though, Billy,” Rocky added. “Where the hell does someone even come up with an idea like that?”

Billy was clearly still laughing too hard to answer, so Jason did it for him, a gleeful grin still audible in his voice. “Trini lent him a report we read last year on CIA torture methods at Guantanamo and Billy, uh…’lost’ it. I guess he got to read it after all.”

“Real talk, though, man,” Adam said through his laughter. “You’re like one lab accident away from becoming Lex Luthor or some shit.”

“I always thought of you more as a young Dr. Von Doom myself,” Tanya said. “But you really don’t think that’s a little harsh?”

“Hey, it got Rocky’s attention, didn’t it? Besides, my ass is still sore from Tommy knocking me over at the Youth Center today,” Billy said. “Consider revenge officially mine.”

“In the middle of a battle operation?” Rocky asked incredulously. “That doesn’t seem at all irresponsible to you?”

“Right, because blasting music so loud you can’t hear your teammates’ communications is textbook responsible mission protocol,” Billy shot back. Rocky just grumbled in reply. “Oh, come on, Rocky, don’t be so melodramatic,” Billy said. “You guys dropped from roughly 800 miles above the surface, which would have given you plenty of time to readjust your trajectory. Which you didn’t even end up needing to do anyway. You should have learned by now – I think of _everything_. And I never forget.”

“OK, everyone,” Tommy said with a chuckle. “We should probably switch to team frequencies before we go full-on Springer. Jase, you’ll coordinate comms, right?” There was silence for a second. “You’re nodding, aren’t you?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, sorry, I was adjusting some settings on the display. I only knew you were talking cause my Dad shoved me.”

“Thanks, Mr. Scott,” Tanya said sweetly. “You the real MVP.”

In the midst of her next bout of laughter, Kat happened to glance back down at her readout. “Billy, I’ve got something,” she said, all humor immediately gone from her voice.

“What is it, Kat?” Billy asked, snapping right back into battle mode like someone had flipped a switch.

“There’s some kind of abnormality at about my two o’clock,” Kat said, frowning at her display. “I’m not entirely sure what it is.”

“You sure there’s something there, Kat?” Kim asked. “My radar range overlaps yours and I’m not reading anything in that area.”

“Well…neither am I,” Kat replied. Before anyone could chime in about how confused they were, she went on. “But it’s still…different, somehow.” She racked her brain for a moment for a way to describe what she was seeing. “Billy, remember when you were tutoring me for that computer science class and you told me about the difference between zero and null?” Kat’s dexterous fingers danced across her readout screen, sending Billy a screenshot of her display. “Look. On most of this screen, I’m getting zero, but I’m getting a reading. In this area here,” she used her screen to draw a rough circle around the anomaly. “It’s like there isn’t even a reading of empty space. I’m just not getting a reading at all.”

“Oh my god, you’re right,” Kim gasped; Kat saw the Firebird edge closer to her in her peripheral vision. “How did you even notice that?”

“It was just like the readouts from the moon that we got when we first got here. The complete lack of a reading, even a negative one, that we thought meant there were nothing but bodies down there.” Kat leaned forward and squinted through her visor, as though she could will herself to see the invisible entity that loomed before her. “I went over and over and over them to try and prove that they really were all dead down there; I am intimately familiar with what these things look like.”

“Wait,” Adam said, and Kat thought she could actually hear in his voice the frown line that had just split his forehead in half. “Why didn’t you say anything about that before?”

Kat was going to answer him, really she was, but Tommy cut her off. “No time for that right now. If these things are interfering with our scanners somehow, we could be under attack at any second.”

“Hold on,” Kim suddenly said. “I wanna try something. Billy, Jase, you guys got my readings?”

There was a pause. “I’m not sure what you mean, Kim,” Billy replied, sounding a touch confused. “I have your comm connection coming through loud and clear.”

“And I have your position, vital signs and diagnostics,” Jason added, “but unless Billy stuck a dashcam on that thing since I was here last we can’t see what you’re seeing.”

“Damn it,” Billy hissed. “I _knew_ there was something I meant to do last week.”

Kat glanced to her right through her viewscreen at the Firebird drifting along beside her against the infinite empty backdrop of space, and a thought occurred to her. “What about one of the recon drones? Isn’t there a whole fleet of those just sitting around in lower orbit waiting to be sent out somewhere?”

“I wish,” Jason snorted. Kat heard him moving objects around in the holographic display. “The second we got you guys out of the hangar Billy redirected them all to the last known coordinates of those ships in case your energy signatures triggered another attack. We didn’t want to be caught off guard.”

“I was afraid it might be something like that,” Tommy said. “If we’re gonna try something we’d better do it all at once. Kim, what was your idea?”

“We switch our viewscreens to infrared,” Kim answered. “It doesn’t go through the scanners so hopefully they won’t have thought to find a workaround for it. If that doesn’t work we try thermal.”

“I’m game,” Adam said. “I’m almost in position for that scan anyway.”

Kat raised her right hand, extended her first two fingers, and rested her fingertips against the edge of her viewscreen. “Ready whenever you are.”

“OK, guys,” Tommy said. “Switch to infrared on my mark. Two. One. Mark.”

Kat gently swiped her fingers across her screen from right to left; as her hand moved from one side to the other, her view changed from the deep black and twinkling white pinpricks of stars to merely a slightly grainier black field with no stars, a huge, shapeless green mass looming at the edge of the moon’s orbit, and what appeared to be several dozen smaller green shapes moving very quickly toward –

“Shit!”

Kat yanked her controls to one side, barrel-rolling her zord to the left. She felt the shockwave as the projectile that had been on a crash course with her left wing zipped by underneath it, jarring her against the seatbelt. As she completed the rotation, she caught a glimpse of Kim’s zord dodging another projectile by burning the thrusters on its underside and blasting straight up like a Harrier jet.

“Son of a bitch!” Kim grunted, her zord wheeling back and to the left out of Kat’s vision. “When the fuck did these things get here?”

Righting her zord to her best approximation of right-side up in a zero gravity environment, Kat took half a second to survey the layout in front of her. What appeared to be a small army of miniature versions of the giant space fortresses looming over Earth was suddenly spread out across the expanse of space between the larger ship and the moon, closing the gap on the small squadron of zords with every second. She risked a quick glance down at her scanner, but all she could see was a smattering of tiny spots of void in her readout, and the small fighters’ lack of scanner reading made quantifying their numbers basically impossible.

“They’ve been here the whole time,” Tommy replied curtly, grunting with exertion. Kat caught a glimpse of the Falcon zord being wrenched to one side, narrowly averting a barrage of projectiles. “We’re just lucky they waited to shoot long enough for us to see them.”

Kat flipped a couple of switches on her console, sending as much additional power as she could to reinforcing her shields. The projectiles were coming at her in waves now, an almost constant stream of pulsating spheres of energy that flickered green in her infrared view. “We have a plan here?” She demanded, firing a few blasts of return fire into the oncoming fleet. As the question was leaving her mouth, Kat suddenly realized that many of the ships were flying right past her, taking advantage of her preoccupation with the projectiles to slip right past the zords and make a beeline for the moon.

“They’re going right past us!” Kim shouted, echoing Kat’s suspicions. There was a flash of white as Kim landed a direct hit on one of the fighters and destroyed it, popping the small ship like a balloon filled with firecrackers.

“Nice shot,” Tommy grunted appreciatively, whipping around and accelerating back toward the moon. “And you’re right. These guys could have blown the fuck out of us already and they haven’t. This whole thing is a distraction so they can get past us.”

“They must have picked up on the energy signatures of the ground team,” Billy piped in. “At least one of you needs to run interference for them. Adam will join you as soon as he can.”

“I’ll do that,” Tommy said. “I’m already heading that way anyway. Kim, Kat, you guys stay here, do as much damage as you can. Make them pay more attention to you than they are to the moon.”

Kat cracked a half-smile under her helmet. “Done.” Gunning her engines as hard as she could, Kat blasted the Crane zord forward, straight into the center of the swarm of fighter ships. Two of them approached her, closing in and leaving a slowly shrinking space between them. Kat bit down on her bottom lip and waited for the last possible second before yanking her controls to the right, flipping her zord sideways and shooting through the gap between her two attackers. She saw the flashing lights from behind her as they crashed into each other and exploded, but she was already gone, squeezing her weapon triggers and unloading hundreds of rounds a minute of ammunition made from pure energy into the mass of enemy ships that had begun to cluster around her like white blood cells around a virus.

Noticing that the fighters had begun to close in, her available space shrinking, Kat pulled the throttle back toward her and drove her zord in a wide circle, blasting through everything in her way and anything else she got a good look at. After a moment, she had cleared a larger area to work with and chanced a look at her radar screen, where several of the patches of null readings were beginning to abandon the moon and turn back toward them.

“It’s working!” She said excitedly, launching her zord straight up, flipping over, and charging back down like a breaching dolphin. Kat was almost giddy, the rush of flying and the frenzy of battle working her adrenal glands into overdrive. Her hands glided over the zord’s controls without her even having to think about where they went, flying from button to switch to joystick with the dexterity of a piano virtuoso. It was that inarticulable feeling of becoming one with her zord, as if she wasn’t driving a vehicle but rather acting as the brain of another, larger creature.

“They’re only gonna keep coming back to us as long as we keep giving them reason to,” Kim said breathlessly, her voice shrill from excitement as well. “It’s not enough just to blast the shit out of ‘em; we gotta put on a fucking show.”

Kat actually heard herself giggle. “So you’re saying the fate of the world depends on you being the center of attention? Oh no, whatever shall we do?”

“Well, since you asked…” Kat looked up in time to see Kim bait one ship into firing at her, then peel off at the last second to let the projectile plow through several of its own ships that been closing in on her. “If I were you, I’d just try to keep up.”

“Anything you can do, Kimmie,” Kat shot back, leveling herself out again. “I can do better.” In one fluid motion, she slammed the throttle forward again and immediately shot out her hand and hit a button that cut off power to her left thrusters. The result was that her zord was sent flying forward while spinning like a top. Kat squeezed down her weapon triggers again, sending out a barrage of energy blasts in every direction. She was spinning so fast that the view from her cockpit was nothing but a massive black and green blur, lit up every few seconds by another near-blinding flash of white light; it felt like she was turning the longest pirouette of her life while an army of photographers snapped an entire album’s worth of pictures.

The G-Forces pulled an exhilarated scream from her mouth, the way a roller coaster would. Finally, Kat killed her right thruster and gently gunned her left reverse thrusters to straighten out her trajectory. She blasted her way through a couple more enemy ships before finding Kim again.

“You OK?” Kim asked with a chuckle. “I could’ve sworn I heard you screaming.”

As if in response, Kat fired at a pair of incoming fighters and watched as they exploded. “If I were you, Kim,” she said with a grin. “I’d just worry about keeping up.”

Her challenge delivered, Kat gunned her thrusters, armed her weapons, and charged back into the fight.

* * *

**Above the Moon’s Surface  
** **10:10 PM PDT**

Rocky pressed his arms against his sides, his fingers brushing reassuringly over the shape of his holstered blaster, as he plummeted toward the surface of the moon. His ears still rung with the fading sounds of the blaring music Billy had blasted into his helmet, so every few seconds he had to shake his head a little so it didn’t feel like his entire skull was vibrating.

He supposed he should’ve expected one of them to do something to him eventually; Tommy and Aisha had both repeatedly given him shit about playing music in his helmet and Adam had warned him a couple weeks ago about how fed up they were getting, but it wasn’t like he was just doing it to zone out and not pay attention. “Falling” toward the surface of the moon or a planet without an atmosphere was unsettlingly quiet without the wind rushing by in your ears, and the music he played was to distract himself from how much falling in a vacuum fucked with his head.

“Hey, Rocky, you still there?” The smug smirk on Jason’s face was audible in his voice, and Rocky let out a loud, exasperated sigh, relishing in the harsh burst of static he sent through the communicator.

“We’re all good here, Big Red,” he replied in a tone of sarcastic cheerfulness. “Nothing out here distracting us, or blasting into our ears out of nowhere or scaring the shit out of us, or anything. Nope, not a thing.”

“Good to know,” Jason said, growing slightly more serious. “Your elevation just dropped below 400 feet. What are you seeing on the surface?”

Rocky would’ve answered, but he’d taken one last opportunity to try and shake the ringing out of his ears. Luckily for him, Trini was apparently planning to answer for him anyway.

“We’re approaching that flattened out area with the symbol dug into it that we saw on the video,” she said. “Those aliens we saw in Angel Grove are all over it, too.”

“How many are we talkin’ here, Tri?” Jason asked.

“A fucking _lot_ , is how many,” Aisha said. Rocky glanced to his left and saw her absentmindedly unfastening and refastening the holster that held her blaster. “As in flies-on-dog-shit, ants-on-spilled-soda a lot. There are places where I can’t even see through them to the ground.”

“What about the structure?” Jason asked, seeming unrattled by Aisha’s colorful description. Rocky guessed he was busily moving things around in the holographic display as they spoke, allowing Billy to keep the comms channels separated so he wouldn’t be overwhelmed. “Can you tell anything about it from there?”

“Whatever it is, it’s super heavily guarded,” Rocky said. “They’re smashed up against the walls of the thing ten or twenty bodies deep, it’s like some kind of fucked-up mosh pit.”

“OK, so speaking of fucked up,” Tanya said from Rocky’s right. “How have none of you noticed the weirdest part about all this?” After an incredulous pause, she added, “By which, of course, I mean the fact that not one of these guys are wearing a spacesuit, or a helmet, or an oxygen tank or fucking anything you’d think they would need to just walk around in the vacuum of space?”

“Holy shit, she’s right,” Trini said. “They’re just walking around down there like it’s no big deal.”

“Hey Billy?” Rocky said with a growing unease. “We have anything on record about any known species that can survive in space without any kind of gear?”

There was a moment of silence, and Rocky could feel his heartbeat start to speed up. They were closing in on the ground fast now – the altimeter in his heads-up display had just hit 100 feet, which meant they would be on the ground in less than a minute. “Come on, Billy, we’re running out of time here.”

“This is rather unnerving,” Billy finally said, “but there appears to be absolutely no record in any of our databases on the universe about an alien species that can survive unassisted in space. I have no theories at this point as to how such a thing is even possible.”

“Oh, good. We’re fighting a bunch of dudes that don’t even get killed by space,” Tanya muttered. Rocky set his jaw and readied himself as the ground came rushing up to meet them.

“They sure seemed to get killed by our weapons easily enough,” he said, pressing his hands flat against his thighs. It was at this point that he noticed that a few of the wandering blue creatures had stopped what they were doing and were staring up at them, watching as the four Rangers came plummeting toward them like a very well-coordinated meteor shower. “All right folks, here we go. Seatbelts fastened, tray tables upright and locked, and finish up that handjob you had going in the bathroom. We are coming in for a landing.”

Rocky waited until he was only a dozen feet off the ground before he slammed his heels together and initiated his short-burst suit-mounted thrusters, pulling him parallel to the ground and carrying him over several yards worth of blue aliens before he abruptly cut them off; he glided for another few feet, then, just as he was about to reach the ground, he pulled his knees in close, flipped himself over, and brought his feet down directly into the face of an alien standing below him. The creature’s head was driven backward into the ground with enough forward momentum that it carved a trench several feet deep and a quarter-mile long into the moon’s surface and ground the thing’s head into bloody chunks.

As he slid to a stop, Rocky barked out one last set of orders: “Tanya, Sha, weapons hot, lasers on blast. I want all eyes on you. Tri, on me, we’re going for the structure. First one there wins.” He narrowed his eyes inside his helmet.

“It’s clobberin’ time!”

Rocky used the moon’s decreased gravity to his advantage, launching himself out of the trench he stood in and propelling his body over the creatures’ heads. He flicked his left wrist to summon his sword and drew his blaster with his other hand, firing several shots along the sword’s hilt as he fell back toward the aliens again. He landed cleanly on the head of the nearest alien, and hopped across several others, bouncing from head to head like a sentient pinball while knocking away the occasional tentacle with his sword.

“Rocky, coming up on your six!” Trini’s voice echoed in his helmet. Rocky stole a quick glance at his HUD and realized Trini still hadn’t hit the ground yet. He threw his sword ahead of him like a spear, driving it through four aliens like a giant blue kabob, bounced off one more head and dug both feet into another alien’s shoulders before leaping into the air again just as Trini went whizzing past his head. He twisted in midair, shot out a hand and caught her by the right ankle, twisting them both around in a wide circle. Trini drew both her daggers and carved a ring of carnage around them; as they fell back to the ground Rocky released her at exactly the right instant to send her rocketing out in front of him like a giant projectile, slicing off limbs and heads and tentacles with both daggers as she went.

As Trini hit the ground headfirst and rolled to her feet, Rocky landed hard on one knee and had to immediately throw up both arms in an X to deflect two tentacle spikes being swung at his head. He shoved the alien they belonged to away, spun himself around on his planted foot and swept his leg around, dropping the creature onto its ass. Pushing himself back upright, he turned and charged after Trini, casually yanking his sword out of the ground and the stack of corpses as he went by.

By now the entire mass of aliens on the moon’s surface had been alerted to their arrival, and any of those not yet drawn toward Tanya and Aisha, which mostly included the ones between him and Trini and the structure ahead of them, were massing around them as if hoping to crush them with their sheer mass of bodies. He could hear Tanya and Aisha roaring with delight as they drew more and more of the creatures to the slaughter.

Rocky cracked a smile under his helmet and felt the internal fans gently carry a few beads of sweat away from his forehead. He could not have possibly asked for a better distraction.

Two more aliens stepped into his path and Rocky feigned left, dashed right, felt one of the aliens careen into him and threw it back at its mate, but as he went to spin back around he felt a tentacle catch the back of his legs, then another slam into his right shoulder, sending him spinning to the ground chest first. The wind was knocked from his lungs, and it was only due to the moon’s lesser gravity that he was able to bounce onto his back and knock a spike away with his sword. He flung his sword arm back over his head and swung it blindly behind him, feeling it cut through several legs just before the creatures who had been attached to them toppled over on top of him.

“Fuck!” Rocky grunted, straining to push the creatures’ dead weight off of him even in the reduced gravity. It didn’t help that he had to stop every few seconds to shove his sword through any opening he could find to knock something away, and every new kill just seemed to add to the pile.

Finally, after several painful and frustrating moments, Rocky managed to throw the remaining bodies off of him and kip up to his feet. By then the crowd of blue creatures around him had decided to abandon all pretense and began drawing their strange silver weapons and blasting at him from every direction. No sooner was he upright than a glowing red ball of energy came screaming toward his face.

Eyes widening, Rocky dodged to one side and swung his sword like a baseball bat, sending the projectile careening back toward his foes and ricocheting through the crowd. Not wasting a second to catch his breath, Rocky dug a foot in and took off after Trini, dodging and spinning around aliens and batting away projectiles the whole way.

By the time he reached his companion, Trini was locked in combat with a group of the aliens that had formed a semi-circle in front of her to prevent any further progress. Rocky moved to assist her only to have an alien step in front of him. Thinking quickly, he dropped to the ground, slid through the alien’s legs and used a protruding rock to launch himself airborne once again. He brought the sword back over his head and swung it down on the alien in the semicircle nearest him, slicing it cleanly in half from back to front.

His distraction allowed Trini time to throw both daggers, draw her blaster and fire three shots, all in the span of about four seconds. He stood and nodded to her as she walked over to him, both of them breathing heavily.

“Hey, honey,” Rocky said, patting Trini’s arm. “How was your day?”

Trini snorted. “Ask me again when it’s-“

At that moment a massive impact on the moon’s surface only a few feet to their left sent both Rangers tumbling through the air; the moon’s gravity may have been less, but it didn’t do much to lessen the impact when they slammed into the ground, tumbling over and into each other until they finally came to a stop before the advancing masses of blue aliens.

“Ow,” Rocky grunted, rolling gingerly onto his stomach and pushing himself up on all fours. “What the fuck was that?”

Trini coughed and cleared her throat. “Oh shit. Rocky, we have another problem.”

“What? Who…?” Rocky twisted his head around and peered up into the surrounding blackness. A steady stream of alien ships was rocketing toward the moon, unleashing a volley of glowing energy projectiles before them as they came. The Crimson Ranger felt the ground beneath him tremble as the red ones made impact on the surface. There were green ones, too, which exploded outward into radiating domes of energy that he knew would disintegrate any living thing that stood in their way.

Rocky sprang to his feet and grabbed Trini by the shoulder. “Tri, come on, we have to go right now!”

Then Trini was up and they were running again, leaping around the incoming missiles as they sprinted toward the structure. “Jason!” He heard Trini yell into her communicator. “They’re blasting us from orbit, we need air support!”

“Tommy and Adam are already on their way,” Jason replied. “They should be there any minute.”

Rocky shoved Trini away from him to allow a red projectile to bounce between them. “We’re gonna be _dead_ any minute,” he retorted. “Tell ‘em to move their fucking asses!”

“They’ll get there when they fucking get there, Rock,” Jason shot back. “Those engines can only go so fast. Just focus on getting to that structure alive.”

“Easier said than done, Jase,” Rocky muttered. He and Trini had slowed to a stop as the massive throng of aliens that had gathered around the structure now turned their attention on the two approaching rangers. He glanced around for a moment to try and formulate a strategy. The two of them stood about 200 yards from the structure; an army of the blue creatures that looked to be several hundred strong was now moving toward them from that direction. Fortunately, at least, the area behind them had grown relatively clear as most of the creatures were drawn toward Tanya and Aisha.

The other thing they had to worry about, though, was the constant barrage of the surrounding area from the newly arrived attack fleet that circled the area from space.

“We don’t have time to stand still too long, Rocky,” Trini said from beside him, brandishing her daggers. “What’s our play?”

Just as Trini finished speaking, one of the ships came screaming over their heads, pulled a midair U-turn and came charging back at them, unleashing a torrent of red and green spheres as it came. Rocky turned to Trini. “Two birds one stone?”

She glanced from him to the ship to the approaching aliens. “Wanna give me a boost?”

He held out a hand. “Give me your blaster first.” She handed it to him, readied her daggers, and backed up several steps, twirling them nervously in each hand. Rocky laid the two blasters next to each other on the ground near his feet and turned back to Trini, lacing his fingers together to form a single foothold. “Ready?”

She nodded. “Wait for it. Wait for it…” Suddenly, she took off running, charging toward Rocky as fast as the armor would carry her; Rocky planted his feet, took several deep breaths, and held his interlocked hands at his estimation of knee height. Just before she ran into him, Trini leapt forward and planted her right foot on Rocky’s hands. With every ounce of strength he could muster, he threw her into the air, letting her use his hands as a springboard as she launched herself toward the ship.

The second she was airborne, Rocky dove for the blasters, spun his body around and pointed them directly at Trini’s outstretched daggers. Thumbing a switch on the back of each weapon, he squeezed both triggers to fire a steady beam of energy at each of Trini’s daggers until they glowed the same shade of red as his armor. Trini waited until the glow was nearly blinding before she threw the one in her right hand at the incoming ship.

The dagger hit the ship right at the front, just below center, and exploded, flipping the ship so it was perpendicular to the ground; by then Trini had already tossed the second dagger into her right hand and thrown it at the ship as well, embedding it into the craft’s underside near what looked like one of its engines.

This time, the explosion was so powerful it knocked Trini backwards over Rocky’s head; he scrambled back to try and catch her, but she calmly activated her thrusters again and landed easily on her feet. The ship was sent crashing down to the moon’s surface, and just as Rocky and Trini had hoped, it plowed into the crowd of approaching blue monsters like a fiery meteor, splattering the moon with dark alien blood and carving a path of destruction through the creatures that nearly reached the structure itself.

Rocky let out a roar of triumph. “Get _fucked_ , you blue pricks! Trini, we’re clear, come on!” Trini trotted up beside him and grabbed his shoulder.

“Hold on,” she said. “I won’t get my daggers back until I morph again. Give me my blaster back.” Rocky tossed her the weapon and they took off toward the structure again.

Upon closer inspection, Rocky could make out a large, rectangular opening in the side of the structure that faced them, reminiscent of a garage or airplane hangar; the rest of the structure was jagged, irregular and made from the same glistening black metal as the ships they’d seen already, but something about that entryway caught Rocky’s eye. It was regularly shaped, placed perfectly for convenient entry, and, unlike anything else in these creatures’ design style, seemed eminently functional. Almost suspiciously so. But they didn’t have a whole lot of other options right now.

“Tri, you see that opening?” Rocky pointed to the entrance and looked over to make sure she saw it. At Trini’s nod, he added, “Jase. Trini and I are approaching the structure. There’s some kind of entryway in the nearest wall, that looks like our best bet. I’ll let you know again when we get inside.”

As they neared the door, Trini took a moment to reach down and scoop up a gun from one of the alien bodies that lay scattered around the crash site.

They had nearly reached the building when another explosion rocked the area, this time from much closer. Rocky stumbled, the shockwave knocking him off balance, and he had to grab a piece of the wrecked craft that they were running past to keep from falling. He was about to start running again when Jason’s voice came over his comm.

“Rocky, Trini, _get down!_ ”

Rocky dove to the ground and took cover behind the wreckage. “Jase, what the hell? We’re almost there.”

That was when Trini yelled, “Oh, god _damn_ it!” Rocky peered out from the structure to see a small squad of ships, at least seven strong, flying directly toward them. The structure stood at their backs and the remnants of the blue alien mosh pit was beginning to close in from each side.

“Well, that’s not great,” Rocky muttered. He was just about to make one last desperate run for it when he saw two of the ships on one side of the formation explode and a familiar shape came zooming into view.

“You guys need a little help?” Rocky didn’t think he’d ever been happier to hear Adam’s voice. He broke into a grin as the Pterodactyl zord blasted its way through the group of ships and sped off to find another battle.

“Took you long enough, Park,” Rocky grumbled good-naturedly. He turned to see Trini approaching the structure, almost through the doorway already. Just as he started jogging after her, he noticed that a wall was beginning to lower from the top of the doorway. “Trini, move it, the door’s closing!” He called out, picking up the pace a little bit.

He never heard what happened behind him – once again, the lack of sound in space caused him problems – but right when he was nearing the doorway, the wrecked ship he and Trini had brought down was hit by a stray projectile and violently exploded, sending shrapnel in all directions and throwing Rocky forward through the doorway.

But he didn’t hear or feel any of that. All he felt was his feet leaving the ground and a sharp, piercing pain in his side before the ground came up to meet him.

After that, it was just his painful, ragged breathing and the rapidly dimming light from outside as the door slid closed behind him.

* * *

**Command Center  
** **10:10 PM PDT**

Jason wouldn’t have believed it possible half an hour ago, but any lingering annoyance or disappointment he’d felt about being left out of the mission had completely evaporated by the time the zord squadron was approaching the moon. His eyes and fingers darted dexterously across, around and through the orange wireframe readouts projected into the Main Chamber, relaying comm signals, adjusting terrain layouts and rearranging displays as the situation unfolded in real time. The stress of the last few hours had finally begun to ease, and he felt himself relaxing, even beginning to feel the unique rush of adrenaline that he only ever got from Ranger missions.

“Kim, two more coming in on your three o’clock,” Jason said, rapidly zooming in and out on the developing dogfight above the lunar surface. The weird way the alien ships messed with their scanners was tricky to work around, and he had to keep going tighter and then stepping back again to be sure about how many were moving where. “Tom, small group about to get past you, headed toward the moon.” He swung the entire display around and centered in on Kat, who he found moving quickly through a crowd of enemy fighters; the little wireframe avatar of her zord was flitting around in every direction, sometimes so fast that the display had a hard time keeping up.

“Kat, you’re headed toward the middle of a huge cluster of these assholes, adjust your trajectory and go in from the top, it might make a little more noise.” Jason didn’t wait to hear an acknowledgment of his communications; he’d worked with this module before, and he could feel Billy standing a few feet away, hunched intently over the new communications console he’d just installed. Besides, he knew in the heat of battle his teammates wouldn’t always be able to respond to him; he’d been there, and when you got info like that, you just acted on it, almost on reflex. He was about to go back and ask Adam if that scan of the moon was coming when Billy spoke up again.

“Jase, switch comm channels,” he said, all laughter from earlier gone from his voice. “Drop team just crossed line of sight threshold.”

“Copy,” Jason said, magnifying on the four dots descending toward the moon and snapping his fingers to pop into their frequency. He pinched Rocky’s readout between two fingers and pulled it to the top, letting him be the one he’d talk to first. He couldn’t help but grin as he spoke. “Hey Rocky, you still there?”

He must have come off a bit more smug than he meant to, because Rocky’s immediate answer was to sigh or exhale hard, sending a burst of feedback into Jason’s headset so intense that he actually winced a little. When Rocky did finally speak, his voice was practically oozing sarcasm. “We’re all good here, Big Red,” he replied. “Nothing out here distracting us, or blasting into our ears out of nowhere or scaring the shit out of us, or anything. Nope, not a thing.”

“Good to know,” Jason said carefully, shrugging apologetically at his father, who was still rubbing his ear with an angry glare. He slid the vitals readouts to one side and brought up what they’d managed to scan of the surface while he talked. “Your elevation just dropped below 400 feet. What are you seeing on the surface?”

There was no answer from Rocky for so long a moment that Jason was about to turn to Billy and report a problem with the comms when Trini’s voice came through.

“We’re approaching that flattened out area with the symbol dug into it that we saw on the video,” she said. “Those aliens we saw in Angel Grove are all over it, too.”

“How many are we talkin’ here, Tri?” Jason squinted at the moon while he spoke, trying to make something out from the blurry image they had to work with.

“A fucking lot, is how many.” It was Aisha who spoke this time. Jason shot his dad a look that said, _no shit,_ before she continued. “As in flies-on-dog-shit, ants-on-spilled-soda a lot. There are places where I can’t even see through them to the ground.” Jason almost laughed at this. Sometimes Aisha reminded him so much of himself it was frightening.

“What about the structure?” Jason asked, his eyes moving back to the moon again. “Can you tell anything about it from there?”

“Whatever it is, it’s super heavily guarded,” Rocky said. “They’re smashed up against the walls of the thing ten or twenty bodies deep, it’s like some kind of fucked-up mosh pit.”

“OK, so speaking of fucked up,” Tanya suddenly said. Jason was coming very close to warning his teammates not to start talking all over each other. “How have none of you noticed the weirdest part about all this?” After an incredulous pause, she added, “By which, of course, I mean the fact that not one of these guys are wearing a spacesuit, or a helmet, or an oxygen tank or fucking anything you’d think they would need to just walk around in the vacuum of space?”

“Holy shit, she’s right,” Trini said. “They’re just walking around down there like it’s no big deal.”

“Hey Billy?” Rocky said with a growing unease. “We have anything on record about any known species that can survive in space without any kind of gear?”

Jason quickly muted his end of the conversation and turned to Billy. “You catch that last part?”

“I’m checking,” was Billy’s only reply. Jason grouped the four readouts from the drop team together and flicked them behind his head.

“OK, switch onto their frequency. Put me back on with the other group so we’re not talking over each other.” He glanced over again and saw Billy nod. “I’m muted, by the way,” he said, readying his finger to switch over to the other comm channel. “So they’re gonna be waiting for you to say something.”

“Copy,” Billy said curtly. Without waiting for any further reply, Jason flipped on the other comm frequency.

“Attention all zords, attention all zords. Drop team has broken 100 feet. Clearing out airspace over the structure is priority one. Adam, how we coming on that surface scan?”

“Gonna need a minute on that one, Jase.” Adam’s reply was a little strained. “I got four of these fuckers on my ass right now and no one else is close enough to lend me a hand.”

“OK, hold tight. Tom, you’re the closest one to Adam. I need that surface scan so I can oversee the ground team. Can you get over there and help him out?”

“One sec, bro,” Tommy said. There was a short moment of dead air during which Jason thought he heard his father talking softly with Alpha before Tommy came back. “OK, it looks like Kim and Kat are making plenty big of a show all on their own. I’ll go make sure Adam’s clear. Let me know if anything gets too close to me.”

“Copy.” Jason watched as the small outline of Tommy’s zord moved across the area of space that had become the setting for this aerial battle and approached the moon, where Adam’s zord zigzagged around in front of a tightly grouped squad of ships about four strong. He checked the ground team’s location markers one more time. “Billy, has the ground team made landfall yet?”

“Affirmative. Frequency swap?”

“Just a quick one. You read my mind.” Billy flipped a switch and Jason heard a soft click in his ear as the frequency shifted. “Ground team, this is Command Center. Have you touched down safely?”

Aisha answered almost immediately. “On the ground. Little busy. Rocky and Trini went to building, Tan and I are distraction. Don’t bug me for a few minutes.” There was a second click and Jason’s comm went silent.

“What the fuck?” He tapped the earpiece a few times. “Sha? Anyone? Ground team, hello?” He glanced over at Billy. “I think they just hung up on me.”

“I’ll monitor them,” Billy said. “And I’ll put you back on the other channel.”

The frequency shifted again and Jason turned back to see the last void in the readings disappear from behind Adam and the two zords break off and go separate ways. “Tom, you good?”

“Yeah man, we’re fine. I’m headed back to provide support for Kim and Kat. Adam’s gonna get back in position for that scan.”

“Copy. Keep those ships as far from the surface as you can, we need to cut off their air support.”

“Jason,” Billy broke in. “From what I can tell, the ground team appears to be engaged with huge numbers of these strange aliens. Rocky and Trini have been separated and neither are responding to comms.”

“What?” Jason asked, muting his mouthpiece. “Did Sha or Tanya see anything happen?”

“No, they’re too far away and there are too many bodies to see through.”

“ _Shit_ ,” Jason hissed. He jabbed the button to unmute himself. “Goddamn it, Adam, where the hell is that scan?”

“It’s right fucking here, Big Red, chill out.” Suddenly, the blurry image of the moon shimmered, blinked a few times and then reconstituted itself into a fully detailed, high-definition layout of the lunar surface, where the small group of four glowing dots was scattered among a massive crowd of null readings. Jason saw that Aisha and Tanya were together, a small cushion of space between them and the onslaught of blue creatures that surrounded them. Trini and Rocky were apart from them, but moving closer to each other and toward the structure.

That was when Jason noticed the line of null readings accelerating toward Rocky and Trini’s position.

“Tom, Adam,” Jason said insistently. “We have a line of bogeys advancing on Rocky and Trini’s position on the surface. I need one of you to get over there and give them some cover so they can make it to the structure.”

“Jason!” Trini broke through. “They’re blasting us from orbit, we need air support!”

“Tommy and Adam are already on their way,” Jason replied. “They should be there any minute.”

“We’re gonna be dead any minute,” Rocky retorted. “Tell ‘em to move their fucking asses!”

“They’ll get there when they fucking get there, Rock,” Jason shot back. “Those engines can only go so fast. Just focus on getting to that structure alive.” He turned to Billy. “Are you putting all frequencies through?”

“I’ve set it to activate if they use your name,” Billy said. “Which frankly is what I wish the old console had been able to do. I’m trying to see if I can find anything about what that symbol might mean.”

“Jase.” It was Rocky again. “Trini and I are approaching the structure. There’s some kind of entryway in the nearest wall, that looks like our best bet. I’ll let you know again when we get inside.”

When Jason looked back at the readout, the line of ships approaching the moon had slowed to a stop directly above where Rocky and Trini were now positioned. He acted almost purely on reflex, manually overriding the comms controls and broadcasting himself over all frequencies at once. “Rocky, Trini, _get down!_ ”

“I got ‘em, Jase,” Adam broke in. Before Jason could even acknowledge the communication, the line of ships began to disappear. He heard Adam say something to Rocky and then the outline of Adam’s zord turned and began moving off over the moon’s surface. Suddenly Adam swore loudly and his zord swung sharply back to where it had just been. “Holy shit! Jase, something down there just exploded. I don’t know if Rocky or Trini made it inside.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Jason muttered, turning back to the structure. Trini’s locator signal still glowed from near the large opening in the wall, but Rocky’s had disappeared. Jason had time to cast a few confused glances at the nearby area before Trini’s signal vanished as well, just as it approached the opening. “Somebody get me a visual on Trini or Rocky _right now_ ,” he broadcast to all frequencies, zooming in as close as he could at the structure even though he knew, rationally, that it wouldn’t help him find anything.

“OK, the dust and debris and shit is all out of the way now,” Adam said. “And I’m pretty sure I saw Trini going through the opening before it closed behind – wait.”

“What?” Jason asked.

Nothing.

“Adam! Talk to me, man. What the fuck did you see?”

“Shit. Shit, shit, _shit._ Jase, the opening Rocky and Trini were heading toward just closed and then it just…it _fused_. There’s not an opening there at all anymore, it’s just a flat wall.”

Jason felt a bead of sweat break out on his forehead. He wiped his palms on his shorts and turned to Billy. “Billy, can you get any reading on Rocky or Trini?”

“Negative,” Billy said, concentrating intently on the communication console. “The structure appears to be blocking our signal going in as well as theirs going out.”

“Can we teleport them out?”

“Negative. Whatever that structure is made out of, it’s completely blocking any signal we try to get through it. Which I’m afraid means…”

“Yeah,” Jason said grimly. He looked up from the display and made eye contact with his father. “It means they’re trapped in there.”

* * *

**Falcon Zord Cockpit  
** **Several Hundred Miles Above the Moon’s Surface  
** **10:30 PM PDT**

“Fuck _me_!”

Tommy gritted his teeth, yanked his controls to one side and barrel-rolled past an oncoming cluster of ships, firing a volley of energy rounds as he went. The chaos around him had begun to very quickly become more and more focused, until he could visualize the battle raging on and around the moon happening in only three distinct areas: above and around the structure, where Adam was still circling and where, if he’d heard correctly, Rocky and Trini were now sealed inside; the original landing site where the ground team had landed, where Aisha and Tanya still stood before the onslaught of blue-skinned aliens that had invaded the moon’s surface; and another point out in space, several dozen miles from here, where Kim and Kat were doing the best they could to stem the flow of enemy ships toward the moon. All he needed to do right this second, as field commander of this mission, was make the choice of which of those three areas needed his help the most.

Kim and Kat had appeared to have things firmly in hand last he’d checked; nothing had indicated yet that that had changed. He was in this position in the first place because he’d been coming to assist Adam in clearing a path for Rocky and Trini, but they had made it into the structure, so the situation there was currently unclear.

“Adam,” he said as he righted himself and blew away another incoming ship. “Do you see another entrance? Any other way for them to get out?”

“Not yet,” Adam said. “I’m circling the structure to get a better vantage point. I’ll let you know if I see anything.”

“Copy that,” Tommy said, craning his neck forward to scan the surface of the moon below him. “Jase, we have a sit rep on Aisha and Tanya yet?”

“I only got through to them for a second on the comms,” came his surrogate brother’s reply. “Sha basically told me to fuck off and leave them alone and then hung up on me. They seem like they’ve really got their hands full.”

That settled it. Option 2 it was.

“OK, I’m headed over there. Adam’s circling the structure to try and find another way in.” Tommy paused and licked his lips, searching for the right words. “You guys get through to Rocky and Trini?”

Jason let out a long breath. “Not yet,” he said softly. “Billy says we can’t teleport them out either. Something about that structure is blocking any signal in or out.”

“Listen, Jase. Trini is tough as nails, you know that. And Rocky’s not bad, either. We’re gonna get them out, OK?”

“Yeah.” Jason’s response was a little too quick and a little too loud, but he added more before Tommy could say anything. “We got a plan B?”

“Well there are still two more people on the surface that can help out,” Tommy said. Another glance down told him he was approaching the spot where Tanya and Aisha were still fighting their way through the crowd. “They just need a path cleared.”

“Sounds good to me,” Jason said. “I’ll let you try to reach them on comms; I’ll check in with Adam and Kim and see what else we’re dealing with.”

“Got it.” Tommy wheeled around, blasted the only ship near enough to cause trouble, and keyed his comms to another frequency. “Tanya, Sha. I know you guys are swamped right now, so no need to respond, but if you can hear this prepare for some aerial support.”

He lowered the nose of his Zord, gunned the thrusters and rocketed toward the surface, laying down a barrage of weapons fire as he neared his two comrades. At the last possible second, as if they’d agreed on a plan in advance, both of them leapt straight up into the air and came down on the nose of his Zord, blasters drawn. He sped across the surface of the moon, staying as level as he could, the three of them blasting everything in sight. When they broke through the edge of the mob, his two stowaways hopped off and disappeared as he went flying by, lifting back off and gaining altitude before turning back again for a look.

“Thanks for the assist, Flyboy,” Aisha’s voice broke in over his comm. “I’m guessing Rocky and Trini made it to that building?”

Tommy let out a little laugh of surprise. “Man, how out of the loop _are_ you two?”

“We just killed about twelve million of those blue assholes without being able to catch our breath,” Tanya said; Tommy could hear the exertion in her voice. “Forgive us for not paying rapt attention to everything on comms, too.”

“What she said,” Aisha added. “And you didn’t answer my question. What’s going on?”

“Well, you want the good news or the bad news first?”

“Bad,” Aisha said.

“Good,” Tanya said simultaneously.

Tommy grinned. “Gonna have to pick one.”

“Fine,” Aisha said with a small laugh of her own. “Good first.”

“Good news is, Rocky and Trini got to the structure OK.” Tommy leveled out and steered his Zord in a slow circle over where the two women stood on the ground. “Bad news is, as soon as they did, the damn thing closed behind them and we can’t get a signal in there to talk to them or teleport them out. Adam’s circling it right now trying to find another door, but we need someone on the ground to head over there and see what we can find.”

“Great. If it ain’t one thing it’s fucking another,” Aisha grumbled. “All right, Tan, you heard the man. Let’s get a move on.”

“Just out of curiosity,” Tanya said; Tommy watched her jog after Aisha as they started making their way toward the structure. “In the entire time you guys have been doing this, has one of your plans ever just worked the first time?”

“None since I’ve been here,” Aisha said. “I always kinda thought the plans were just, like, guidelines anyway.”

“Clearly you haven’t worked with Jason enough,” Tommy said. “He’s always saying his plans have built-in backup strategies to cover up the fact that he’s always preferred to wing it.”

“I heard that,” Jason suddenly said. “Tanya, Sha, thanks for joining us. Did Tommy fill you in or have you all just been talking shit about me for the last five minutes?”

“Which of those answers would make you less mad?” Aisha asked, her smirk audible.

“We know what’s going on, Jase,” Tanya said. “We’re on our way to the structure right now.”

“Cool,” Jason said. “Tommy and Adam can provide you with air support if any more of these guys get past Kat and Kim. I’m still trying to reach Rocky and Trini. If I hear anything I’ll let you know.”

“Copy that, Big Red,” Tommy said, steering back toward the structure. “Adam, I hope you’ve got something. We’re bringing the party to you.”

* * *

**The Surface of the Moon  
** **10:45 PM PDT**

Tanya slung her rifle over her shoulder and cinched the strap tighter across her chest as she bounded across the surface of the moon, her boots leaving deep, ridged craters in the dusty surface. She and Aisha had initially landed about a thousand yards from the structure, so from their current vantage point they could see the outside without being able to make out any smaller details.

As she took another bounding stride, starting to become accustomed to the dramatically decreased gravity, Tanya flexed one of the small muscles around her eyes to bring up the magnifying scanner in her visor. The hard, shiny black surface of the structure suddenly rushed up to meet her; she had to stop herself from stumbling as she instinctively reacted to avoid running into something that wasn’t there.

_Still more new to this than I thought_ , Tanya thought to herself, annoyed. Steadying her steps, the Silver Ranger carefully scanned every surface of the building she could see from this angle, the high-resolution magnification revealing every nook and cranny.

Nothing. Even zoomed in this close, it looked like the structure was a single piece of rock that had erupted from the moon’s surface like a pointy black pimple; Tanya couldn’t make out a single opening or flaw in the exterior.

“Damn,” she muttered. She holstered her blaster and brought her newly freed hand up to tap the outside of her helmet. “Sha, I’m on full zoom and I can’t see any openings from this angle. You?”

“Nah, I don’t have anything either.” Tanya glanced to her right, where Aisha ran beside her about 30 feet away. “But 30 feet doesn’t make much of a difference.” Tanya heard Aisha closing her scanner over the communicator. “We’re gonna have to get right up to it and check the back.”

“While you’re at it,” Jason suddenly spoke up in her helmet. “Would one of you guys mind just, like, blasting at the side of that thing with whatever you’ve got on you? I’m suddenly curious about the durability of that material.”

“Got some aggression issues you need us to work out for you there, Jase?” Aisha asked with mock concern. Tanya bit back a laugh.

“Ugh,” she grunted, imitating a caveman. “Me Jason, me hit strange rock with big stick. Ugga ugga.”

“You both better be careful or it’ll be _you_ that get hit with the big stick,” Jason shot back. “Seriously though, could you at least try it out for me?”

“Sure thing, Big Red,” Tanya said with a smile. “One alien doom rock, extra tender, coming right up.”

“Thank you,” Jason said with a chuckle. “Let me know how it goes.”

They both heard a soft click as Jason switched away from their frequency. “Hey Tommy,” Aisha said. “We’re almost there, how we lookin?”

“You’re clear from here, Sha,” Tommy said from his Zord above them. “Nothing moving for miles around. You guys see anything yet?”

“Not on this side,” Tanya said. She had slowed her pace as she neared the structure, which was now only a few dozen yards away. “Maybe we’ll have better luck from the back.”

“Adam, do you remember where Rocky and Trini went in?” Aisha piped up. “Maybe we can get it to open back up again.”

“I can probably walk you through how to get there,” Adam said uncertainly. “But I don’t know how far you’ll be able to get with it. I watched that fucking thing fuse back together into a solid rock face after they went in.”

“OK, but what if there’s a button or something we can open it back up with,” Aisha argued. “These assholes have to get in and out somehow, right?”

“We assume,” Adam replied. Aisha didn’t say anything else, just sighed a little and kept jogging along toward the structure.

A few more bounding strides, and Tanya had reached the structure. The ruins of the two ships Rocky and Trini had brought down still lay in front of it, the surrounding moon dust splattered with the dark, thick alien blood. She walked carefully up to the structure, glancing around to make sure none of the creatures were hiding in the shadows of the towering rock formation. Suddenly, something became apparent to her.

“Hey, Billy?”

There was a momentary silence, and then Billy said, “What’s up, Tan?”

“Can you get Jason back on my frequency? I have a question that only he can zoom out far enough to answer.”

“Just ask for him and the console will switch you back to his frequency automatically,” Billy said. “And I’ll be there in the background if you need me.”

“OK, thanks Billy. Hey, Jason, can you hear me?”

“Yeah, I’m here Tan, whaddya got?” Jason’s reply came a little faster than she was expecting, his voice carrying an eagerness that she logged away in her mind for later.

“Working on a theory,” she said. “Hear me out. Can you zoom way out on the moon and look at the whole area with the circle and the symbol and everything?”

“Just a sec.” There was a brief silence, and then: “OK, got it. What’re you looking for?”

“Can you see where the structure is?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s right at the edge of the circle, right?” Tanya asked as she turned to look back at the smooth line of upturned moon dust that stretched along the surface behind her.

“Yeah, it’s right near the tip of the line in the middle of the symbol on the ground,” Jason said. “But we saw that in the drone footage. What’s your point?”

“Let me ask you this first,” she said. “Can you still see the null readings where the alien things are, even though they’re dead?”

“Uh…yeah?” Tanya imagined Jason tilting his head quizzically at this question.

“OK,” she added quickly. “Are any of them _outside_ the circle?”

“Hold on…huh,” Jason said. “No, they’re all inside it. Come to think of it, from what I recall of that drone footage, they were all inside the circle _then_ , too.”

“I might’ve figured out why,” Tanya said. “I don’t think it’ll show up on the wireframe display, but this thing isn’t just near the edge of the circle – the circle is _coming out of it_. And I think the symbol is, too.”

“Are you sure they didn’t just build the structure on the line they’d already dug?” Jason asked. “Or dug the lines right up to the edges of the structure and stopped?”

“If that’s the case, then why were none of the aliens ever outside the circle?”

“I mean…maybe they just wanted to stay close to what they were guarding,” Jason said. “Remember, we still don’t know what the circle is even _for_. There’s nothing to indicate they can’t walk out of it.”

“That’s fair, I guess.” Tanya frowned. “Too bad they’re all dead now so we can’t test it.”

“You could try with one of the dead ones,” Jason said. “Just pick it up and toss it over the line. If it explodes, we’ll know you’re right.”

She laughed softly. “OK, one exploding dead alien, coming up.”

No sooner had she taken a step back toward the pile of bodies than a massive noise erupted from the other side of the building. Tanya dove for cover, drawing her blaster as she pressed herself to the ground.

“Jesus Christ!” she swore, sweeping her blaster across her field of view. “Sha, what the fuck was that?”

“Sorry, sorry!” Aisha said through a bout of uproarious laughter. “I charged my blaster up to full power and shot the wall with it. Knocked me back on my ass and practically blew up the moon, but the wall’s barely scorched. Whatever this shit is made out of, our weapons can’t penetrate it.”

“Never thought I’d miss Rocky being here to giggle at _penetrate_ ,” Tanya said as she rose to her feet, shoving her blaster back into its holster and grabbing a dead alien under the arms. She dragged it back to the edge of the circle and hoisted it off the ground.

“I can giggle at it if you want,” Jason said.

“I don’t think you’ve ever giggled at anything in your life, Jase,” Aisha said. Tanya swung back and tossed the alien’s body over the line.

Nothing. The body just flopped into the dust and laid there on the moon’s surface as though nothing had changed.

“Shit,” Tanya muttered. “Jase, nothing happened. I don’t think that’s what the circle is for. Back to square one, I guess.”

“Before you head back, can you send the body back here?” Billy suddenly said. “I’d love to have one to examine.”

“I thought we couldn’t teleport anything to the Command Center without a life sign or a Power Coin,” Aisha said.

“I can override that, just send it,” Billy said impatiently. Tanya glanced over at Aisha, who was just approaching from around the corner, and only got a shrug in return. Sighing, Tanya grabbed the alien’s arm and teleported it away.

“Now, about getting in there,” Tanya started to say. She was just rising to her feet when a piece of the wall about ten feet square just sort of flickered out of existence, revealing at least a dozen more of the alien creatures standing at the edge of a huge, dark room.

“Fuck,” Aisha muttered, drawing her blaster and raising it to eye level. “Guess we won’t have to worry about getting another door open.”

The aliens sprinted toward them, their tentacle arms flailing. Tanya didn’t get a chance to reply. She flicked her wrists, feeling the reassuring weight of her matching silver hatchets materialize in each hand, and charged toward their attackers, bounding across the moon’s surface.

The first one she reached raised a tentacle to swipe at her; Tanya swung her right hand up and neatly severed the tentacle at the shoulder. As the alien spun away, another moved in from her left. She pivoted on her toes, using her hatchets to block first one spike and then the other, before slamming both blades into either side of the creature’s neck. Dark, thick blood spurted from both wounds as the body crumpled to the ground at her feet. Tanya lifted her head just in time to see a third alien advancing on her; before she could even lift a hatchet to attack, Aisha fired a charged round from her blaster that blew a hole the size of a grapefruit in the side of the alien’s head.

“Tommy, Adam, the structure just opened but a bunch of the blue guys just came out of it,” Tanya shouted into her helmet, ducking under another tentacle as Aisha squeezed off another volley of shots. “Do we go in before the opening shuts or should we just see what we can see from here?” She dropped to a knee, twisted at the waist and drove a hatchet blade into the kneecap of an oncoming creature, dropping it to the ground where she severed its head with a single stroke.

“I don’t want to risk you two getting stuck in there, too,” Tommy responded; Tanya caught a glimpse of his Zord overhead out of the corner of her eye. “Get as close to the door as you can, see what you can see from out here, but _do not_ cross the threshold of that thing. I don’t want it popping back up and chopping your heads off or something.”

Aisha squeezed off two more shots, spun her blaster in her hand and whipped her arm to the right, plowing her elbow into the face of a blue alien advancing beside her. It stumbled back a step and swung a tentacle up at her, spike first. Aisha moved in close, smacked it in the face with the butt of her blaster and kicked it in the chest. The creature was launched backward into the air, carried off by the moon’s decreased gravity. Aisha raised her blaster and fired one last shot, hitting the creature between the eyes before it could hit the ground again. “Tan, you wanna take care of that? I think I’m good here.”

Tanya slashed an alien across the chest with a hatchet and shoved it aside, charging toward the structure. “Yeah, I got it. Stand by.” She skidded to a stop at the edge of the structure and reached a tentative hand toward it; before she made physical contact, a bolt of energy leapt from the wall into her hand.

“ _Fuck!_ ” she exclaimed. The feeling was like being shocked by a doorknob or a person’s finger, only about a thousand times more intense. “God, that hurts.” She shook her hand off and curled and uncurled her fingers a few times as she advanced carefully toward the entryway and peered inside.

The inside of the structure was lit with a faint, greenish-blue light, but as Tanya glanced around, she realized there was nothing there to generate it. Every surface inside appeared to be made of the same substance as the exterior and the ships, but it was several shades lighter in color and much less reflective. The doorway she stood in front of opened into a single massive room; as she glanced around, Tanya noticed several alcoves along each wall that appeared to lead off to corridors. It was only when she happened to look down, directly in front of her, that she saw it.

“Guys, I’ve got blood in here,” she said, daring a lean forward to poke her head slightly through the faint blue wireframe that was projected over entrance. “A lot of it.” She glanced left, then right – and froze.

“Tanya, what was that last part?” Adam said, his voice muffled slightly. “You cut out halfway through. What did you say about blood?”

She didn’t hear him, she was so stunned by what she was seeing. Just to the right of the doorway, piled on the floor in a slowly growing puddle of blood, were the bodies of Squatt, Baboo, and Finster, covered in bruises and deep lacerations. Lying on top of the pile of bodies, as though someone had stacked it there, was Rito Revolto’s head.

Tanya was about to cut and run when she heard a sound from somewhere deep inside the structure. She looked up in time to see more of the blue aliens come flooding out from the corridors toward her.

Gasping in surprise, she leapt back, hatchets ready, only to see the hole in the side of the structure slowly dissolve back into a solid wall again.

“Guys,” she said shakily. “We were at least partly right. I’ve got four bodies inside the structure: Squatt, Baboo, Finster and Rito.”

“Holy shit,” Tommy muttered. “You’re sure it was them?”

“They were stacked up next to the door like a goddamn Lego house,” Tanya retorted, starting to make her way back toward Aisha. “And there’s more. I’m not sure how or why, but there are more of those things in there than there ever were out here. I think…” she took a deep breath to choose her next words. “I think this is where they came from.”

* * *

**Command Center Main Chamber  
** **11:00 PM PDT**

Rick Scott was sure there were times in his life when he felt more out of place than he did right now.

He just couldn’t think of any at the moment.

“Kim, Kat, you guys need any help over there?” Jason asked, his hands moving deftly between elements of the glowing orange display. The image of the moon was swept gently to one side, enhancing the view of the enormous dogfight that was unfolding around the giant ship that had taken position near the moon. Rick pressed one side of the headset he’d been given against his ear as Kim’s voice came back.

“Not at the moment, Jase, but we’re close enough to the ship to see the opening where the little fighters are coming out. Do we have clearance to approach and check it out?”

Jason moved quickly and smoothly inside the wireframe readout. “Hold up on that for a second, Kim. Let me check and make sure Tom and Adam don’t need any more help running interference for Sha and Tanya.”

Rick shifted his weight nervously from one foot to the other, his fingers drumming restlessly against the smooth metal surface of the console he stood next to. Everything had been happening so quickly over the last few hours that he hadn’t really had time for all these revelations about his son to sink in. Now, as he stood in what looked like the set of a sci-fi movie watching his son, his son’s childhood friends, a talking robot and the disembodied head of a thousand-year-old wizard from space waging a war against an invading alien army with an astonishing level of casualness, he wondered if he would ever be able to fully wrap his mind around how much had been hidden from him for the last four years.

_That’s my son over there,_ Rick thought to himself for what felt like the millionth time today, watching the young man he’d put to bed and played catch with and grounded for breaking curfew command troops and coordinate battle plans like a general. He’d known Jason was prone to playing the hero, and had seen how instinctively he reacted to help people in trouble – it was almost like a compulsion, and at times he’d worried about his son’s willingness to throw himself headlong into danger to protect someone else.

But this was on a whole other level. This was like finding out that your spouse had a secret family in Canada or that your parents were swingers. This was a truth bomb on an intergalactic scale.

Rick sighed and crossed his arms, unable to take his eyes off his son. _And like so many other things,_ he thought, _I didn’t handle it very well_.

* * *

**Jason Scott’s Private Quarters  
** **Two hours earlier**

_Rick stood a few feet behind his son and watched with a detached, stunned amusement as Jason slowly swung open the door to his private room and moved inside, stumbling slightly as he favored his still-healing feet. For a long moment, Rick couldn’t get his feet to move from where he stood rooted to the floor, the ominous silence only broken by the humming of the fluorescent lights, Jason’s mildly labored breathing and the pounding of his own heart. He was distantly aware of what he had lost in the last few hours, but his adrenaline reserves hadn’t run out yet; he knew, though, with a certainty that filled him with dread, that it was only a matter of time before the whole thing hit him like a semi truck._

_“Dad?” He blinked a few times and realized that Jason had stopped, turned around and stuck his head back out through the doorway. His son regarded him with a gentle look of concern and drummed his fingers against the door. “You coming?” Jason gestured with his head and stepped back into the room again. Rick managed to follow him this time, glancing around at the bright red furnishings – carpet, bedsheets, furniture – and the small details that marked this as undeniably his son’s room. Clothes were scattered on the floor, piled in all corners; posters for several metal and punk bands lined the walls; the bed stood unmade, the sheets crumpled near the foot, the pillows askew; and a gaming console lay in the middle of the carpet, cords flung in every direction, controllers tossed haphazardly nearby._

_“Sorry about the mess,” Jason babbled sheepishly, opening a drawer and rustling through it. “I keep meaning to clean up in here but things just kinda kept…_ happening. _” He straightened and tossed Rick a clean shirt and a pair of jeans. “Those oughtta fit unless you’ve put on a few pounds since I’ve been gone.” Any other time, the joke would’ve seemed perfectly typical of their relationship; today it rang slightly hollow, as though Jason was only doing an impression of his normal self. Rick didn’t move for a second, just stared at the clothes in his hand as the door swung slowly shut behind him._

_“So were you ever planning on telling us?” The question seemed to leap unbidden from his mouth, the broiling mixture of anger, sorrow, confusion and fear just beneath the calm exterior coalescing into a burst of words he was powerless to suck back in._

_Jason went rigid at the question. He let out a long sigh and fixed his gaze on the dresser in front of him. “I wanted to. Really. Right from the start, I was always the one who said that keeping ourselves a secret was a bad idea.”_

_That matched up with what Kimberly had said earlier, but suddenly that didn’t seem like enough. “It wasn’t just_ ‘a bad idea,’ _son,” he said softly. “It was wrong.”_

_To his genuine surprise, Jason didn’t argue. “Maybe it was. But there are rules to this whole thing.”_

_“Rules, huh? Like what?_

_Jason turned and finally made eye contact with him. When he spoke, his voice was stronger this time, more confident. “One: don’t reveal your identity to anyone. Period. Two: Never escalate a battle unless your enemy forces you to. And three: Never use your powers for personal gain.” He held up a finger with each number and paused for a moment when he finished. “I don’t remember exactly how Zordon worded it the first day, but you get the idea.”_

_The more his son explained to him, the more questions he seemed to have. “I don’t understand.” Jason blinked at him in surprise and furrowed his brow. “This…guy,” he struggled for words to describe things he had no concept of only hours before. “He just plucks you out of the world completely at random, beams you in here and tells you, a bunch of kids with no military training or combat experience, that you’re supposed to save the world. And what, you just do it? Just like that, no questions asked?”_

_“OK, for the record,” Jason said, stepping closer and becoming visibly irritated. “It wasn’t_ ‘just like that’ _at all. We had all kinds of questions. Kim and Zack actually walked out at first. I had to convince them to stay.”_

_“So, what, you just took this guy at his word? This guy who’s from another planet and has magical powers, who you’ve never met, and you just trust him right off the bat?”_

_“I followed my gut, Dad. OK?” Jason’s voice surprised him with its harshness. “Isn’t that what you always told me to do? Every instinct I had told me that this guy was trustworthy, so I trusted them.” He took a breath and his voice softened. “Besides, I was a 17-year-old kid being offered a chance to be a superhero. Cut me some slack, would ya? Of course I said yes.”_

_Jason offered him a small smile, but Rick was still flush with paternal worry. He licked his lips and solemnly said, “You could’ve died, Jason. You could’ve died and your mother and I would have had no idea where or when or how or why. Do you have any idea what that would’ve been like for us?”_

_Jason set his jaw and shoved his hands in his pockets. “There are a lot of people out there who_ would _have died if I had said no,” he said. “And there are a lot of people out there right now who are going to die unless I do my job.”_

_“And what about your mom and your brothers?” Rick nearly shouted, feeling the hot tears begin to work their way back. “Where were you when they needed you?”_

_Jason glared at him. “Where were_ you? _” he demanded, jabbing a finger at his father. “I saw you come wandering up to the house like you’d just taken a walk to the store. Where the fuck were you while they were in there dying?”_

 _“I was_ doing my job _!” Rick exclaimed, suddenly aware that he was now defending himself to his own son. “I was out there putting my ass on the line the same way I’ve done every day since before you were born. Protecting people, the right way, within the bounds of human law, instead of running around trying to play hero when what you really are is a bunch of child soldiers fighting someone else’s war.”_

_Jason was silent for a long moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper and strained with repressed fury. “I’ve idolized you for as long as I can remember, Dad. You were a hero to me – you risked your own safety to protect other people, you were brave and you were badass and you never took shit from anybody.” He wiped his eyes with the inside of his elbow. “My entire life, everything I’ve ever done, the first thing I always thought about was whether it would make you proud of me. So if you wonder why I dive headlong into heroics the first chance I get, you’ve got no one to blame but yourself.”_

_With that, Jason strode back across the room and quickly began changing into clean clothes. Rick just stared at him for a second before shaking his head and beginning to change himself. Hoping to change the subject, he spoke up again. “So, what’s the plan now? You kids have a next step?”_

_Jason grunted in acknowledgment and slid his arms into a baseball jersey Rick had gotten him for Christmas. “I don’t know about the others,” he said as he moved back toward the door. “But my next step is to murder the shit out of as many of these blue motherfuckers as I can get my hands on.” He opened the door and walked out into the hallway._

_“Jason, wait!” Rick yanked the clean shirt the rest of the way over his head and stepped out after his son. Jason stopped but didn’t turn around. “I’m sorry for what I said, I…” he trailed off and sighed. “You’re all I’ve got left in the world right now. I don’t want to end this with us still being mad at each other.” Jason turned and looked at him over his shoulder._

_“Neither do I, Dad. I meant what I said before – I’m like this because I wanted to be like you. That hasn’t changed.”_

_“Thank you,” Rick replied. “I appreciate that. Doesn’t mean I’m gonna stop worrying.” Jason smiled and turned away again to walk off down the hall. “Hey,” Rick added as they walked. “You sure you’re OK? I don’t want to see you get wrapped up in revenge. I’ve seen more than enough crime scene photos to illustrate how ugly that can get. Are you sure you’re ready for this?”_

_“I’m fine,” Jason said curtly, still walking toward the Main Chamber. “Really. You don’t have to worry about me.”_

_Rick didn’t say anything else, but as he followed his son down the brightly lit corridor, he couldn’t stop thinking that his son hadn’t turned to face him when he spoke. There was only one reason for that: Jason didn’t think he could look his father in the eye and say it convincingly. At this point, though, all Rick could do was stay close by and hope his son didn’t go too far._

_Out of everything, he realized, that was what scared him the most._

* * *

**Command Center Main Chamber  
** **11:05 PM PDT**

“Negative on that opening in the ship, Kim,” Jason said, crossing his arms and analyzing the wireframe display. “At least for now. We need to make sure Sha and Tanya are covered until they can get a visual on Rocky and Trini.”

“Copy that,” Kim’s voice came back with a slightly irritated sigh. “Let me know the second anything changes, OK?”

“You’ll be the first to know, Squirt.” Jason smirked and switched back onto the ground team’s frequency. “Ground team, sit rep. Any sign of Rocky or Trini?”

Rick shifted his weight and watched his son intently. He’d only been here for a very short time, but he already had serious concerns about their methods. Pulling pranks on each other in the middle of an active op, playing loud music over a communication system that everybody was using – these were not the actions of a highly trained team of specialists. The fact that these truly were kids behind those masks was becoming more and more obvious every minute. He wondered how nobody had thought of that before.

Rick tuned back in to what was being said just in time to hear Tanya say, “I think this is where those things come from.” In that moment, something about Jason changed very quickly. His jaw clenched, his posture went rigid, and his hands balled into fists.

“Tom,” Jason said, his gaze fixated on the holographic layout of the moon. Rick felt his heartbeat start to accelerate; a bead of sweat rolled down the back of his neck. “How much firepower can you guys drop on that thing right now?”

There was a stunned silence over the comms as Jason’s question sunk in. It was Adam who broke it.

“I’m sorry, what?” His voice carried a tone of incredulity that verged on fear. “Jase, you are aware that Rocky and Trini _are still in there_ , aren’t you?”

“They’ll be fine,” Jason said dismissively. “Those two are good at what they do, they’ll figure something out. If this thing is really creating more of these things, we have to take this opportunity to destroy it while we still can.”

“Jase, hold on,” Tommy started gently, trying to calm things down.

Aisha cut him off. “Are you outta your fuckin’ skull?” She demanded angrily, with enough force that it made Rick’s ears hurt. “In case you forgot, dude, Tanya and I are still standing _right here_ and have already blasted this thing with everything we’ve got and barely scratched it. The only thing we could accomplish even if we do manage to blow it up is to kill two or maybe four more of us.”

Jason jabbed angrily at the holographic display and turned back toward the room as he spoke, glancing from Billy to Rick and back. “What we could accomplish is taking out the source of these things for good and not having to fucking worry about them anymore. And in case _you_ forgot, Sha, these assholes have already killed almost my entire family. Does that mean a goddamn thing to _any of you_?”

Tommy spoke up again, trying one more time to defuse things. “Jason, think about this for a second –“

Jason was moving before Tommy even had three words out. He flung the glowing orange display to one side and slammed a hand down on the console in front of him. “Goddamn it, why are we even still talking about this? We have one chance, right now, to end this thing before it gets any worse. So either one of you guys grows a pair and starts dropping whatever you’ve got on this thing or I’ll fucking come up there and do it myself.”

At this point, Rick had already taken several steps in his son’s direction, but he stopped mid-step when Tommy broke in again, this time not bothering with being calm. “Everybody ignore that order. Jason, I swear to fucking god, if you don’t get your shit together and rein your crazy back in in the next ten seconds I am kicking you off this mission. You’re putting at least four of your own teammates in danger for a plan that has about zero chance in hell of actually working and you are seriously damaging my calm. So either shut the fuck up or turn off your headset and walk away.”

“You want me off this op?” Jason was practically screaming at this point, gesturing angrily with a finger as if Tommy were standing right in front of him. “Come down here and take me off yourself, you fucking coward. You call yourself a leader? You’re a fucking joke.”

Rick vaguely heard Zordon’s booming voice finally cut in over the chaos, but he didn’t hear the exact words. This was what he’d been afraid of ever since his talk with his son two hours earlier. He walked right up behind Jason and grabbed his shoulder from behind, just trying to get his attention so Jason would talk to him.

Instead, Jason whipped around, let out a primal scream of rage, and slammed his fist into the side of his father’s head. Rick was knocked completely off-balance by this surprise attack and stumbled to his left and fell, a few drops of his blood splattering onto the Command Center floor.

He felt his head collide with the edge of a console and then everything went black.


	13. Soldiers of the Wasteland

**“Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.”  
** **-Maya Angelou**

**“People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.”  
** **-George Orwell**

**Firebird Zord Cockpit  
** **Several Hundred Miles Above the Moon  
** **11:15 PM PDT**

“Jason? Hello?”

Nothing. Kim tightened her grip on her controls and bit her lower lip in frustration.

“Kim, what the hell is going on?” Kat asked, barely hiding the tremor in her voice.

“I don’t know,” she answered, waiting a moment before trying again. “Jason started going full-on roid rage at Tommy and then the signal just cut out.” She heard Kat take a breath like she was going to ask another question. “Hang on a minute, let me try and get them back one more time.” She disconnected and reconnected to the Command Center comm frequency. “Billy? Zordon? Anybody? _What the fuck is happening in there?_ ”

Again, she received nothing in response but more dead air. Groaning, she wrenched her throttle to the left to avoid an incoming enemy fighter and fired a volley of energy rounds at two more as they crossed in front of her.

“God damn it,” she muttered. Her left hand darted out and tapped a button to switch frequencies. “Tommy, it’s Kim. Do you copy?”

She got an answer this time, from the far more annoyed and pissed-off version of Tommy Oliver. “I copy, Kim. You about to go ballistic on me too?”

“Pending,” she replied curtly, weaving through another cluster of hostile ships. “Answer a question for me and we’ll see.”

She couldn’t see him, but she _felt_ him roll his eyes at her request. After a second, he said, “Shoot.”

“I was talking to Jason right before his brain melted or whatever, and I was telling him that Kat and I could see an opening in the side of the ship where all the smaller fighters were coming out. He told me to hold off on investigating it while you guys provided cover for Sha and Tanya, but it sounds like you’ve decided to ignore orders from the giant screaming skull with flame eyes right now so I wanted to confirm with you.”

Tommy was silent for a moment, as if contemplating. “How many ships are still coming out of there?” he asked eventually. Kim wheeled around and corkscrewed around a pair of fighters, blasting a few more as she gunned her engines toward the main ship.

“None,” she said, leaning forward and magnifying the image on her viewscreen for a better look. “The opening is still there but nothing’s coming out of it anymore. I can see things glowing inside the ship from here.”

“How many of them are still flying around where you guys are?”

Kim looked around for a minute, trying to get a good view of the area. She switched her viewscreen to infrared and turned in a circle, pupils darting in all directions as she tried to get a rough count of how many null readings she saw.

“Few dozen, maybe,” she finally said, swiping her view back to normal. “They’ve really thinned out since they stopped coming out of the ship and some of them went off toward you guys.”

That seemed to decide it. “OK, you’re cleared to check it out. Just you though,” he added quickly. “Have Kat stay behind and mop up the stragglers – we don’t want anyone sneaking by and fucking us in the ass at the worst possible time.”

“Copy,” she said with a chuckle. “And on that lovely note…” she went to cancel the connection when Tommy suddenly spoke up again.

“Oh, and Kim?”

“If this is you telling me to be careful or something, don’t bother,” she cut in, “there’s no need. Believe it or not, I’m actually kinda good at this.”

“Just shut up and listen for one goddamn second,” he growled back. “Do not, I repeat, _do. Not._ Go inside the actual ship. Once Rocky and Trini crossed that threshold, we lost all communication and then the thing closed behind them and trapped them in there. I have no idea what that’ll do to the zords and I don’t plan on finding out today. We clear?”

“Crystal,” she said curtly.

“Good,” he said. “Now, you _and_ your inferiority complex be careful out there.” He cut off their communication before she had a chance to retort.

“Mother _fucker_ ,” she grunted, thumbing her comm switch again. “Kat, I’m headed in closer to check out that opening. Keep these guys busy for a minute, would ya?”

“Sure, Kim,” Kat replied, her voice oozing sarcasm. “Give me a minute to get my top off and I’ll be fine.”

“That’s the spirit!” Kim said cheerfully. “Have fun!” She steered herself toward the main ship and gunned her engines again. By this point the area nearest the main ship was almost entirely devoid of smaller fighters, most of them intent on slipping past the group of Zords to reach the moon. Kim was able to reach the side of the thing with only a couple of interruptions, a straggler or two that were no match for a blast from her Zord. She slowed herself nearly to a stop as she approached the opening. She’d heard what Tommy had said; if he’d honestly thought that would stop her, he was either stupid or in denial.

She ran her scanners and her own eyes over the opening in the ship’s hull; it was rectangular, roughly the size of a football field. A faint blue glow seemed to shimmer in and out of focus in the empty space between its four edges. She couldn’t see much on the other side; all her scanner could tell her was that there was a large – _very_ large – open area inside, crisscrossed at wide intervals with what looked like either narrow catwalks or support struts of some kind. It was impossible to tell how many, if any, of the actual creatures themselves were inside – the only images she could get was in the area immediately accessible through the opening. Everywhere else, the scans seemed to hit a wall.

Kim paused for a second, letting her thrusters bounce her gently back and forth to hold her mostly in place as she considered her options. She had no idea what sort of defenses there might be waiting for her once she crossed that threshold, or how many more of those things were waiting inside. On the other hand, the whole reason she was here in the first place was because she wanted to figure out as much as she could about whatever these things were before they encountered them again. Now that she actually sat here, though, she was suddenly keenly aware of how little she actually knew about what to expect once she was in there. From what she could tell, it looked like her best bet would be to go in, all scanners ready to go, take as thorough a scan as she could, turn around and haul ass back out before they caught onto her. She rolled her shoulders and felt a pleasant pop in her neck.

“OK,” she whispered to herself, flexing her fingers around her controls. “Here goes nothing.”

Kim slammed her throttle forward, blasting her way toward the threshold as fast as the Zord would go. Her left hand hovered over the panel that operated her scanners, waiting to trigger every scan she could think of, her right hand gripping the control stick so tightly her arm started to shake. Just before she passed through the opening, a sudden thought occurred to her, and she flung her left arm out and jabbed the button to activate her Zord’s exterior lights. An intense array of bright white fluorescent bulbs sprang to life, gleaming off the silky black exterior of the giant ship as though shining into a mirror.

Then she was through. Kim quickly pulled her hand back down toward the scanner controls; she was so focused on getting it back in place that it took her a second to realize that her entire cockpit had gone dark.

“What the fuck-“ she glanced around frantically, jabbing buttons and hammering the throttle down, but nothing would respond. The entire Zord was dark; she began to notice how silent everything had suddenly become, the hum of her engines and soft beeps and clicks from her display abruptly, conspicuously absent. What was once a powerful, graceful machine had been instantly reduced to little more than a dead stick, only moving forward on the remaining thrust from her last boost.

“Shit, shit, shit…” she hissed, throwing off her restraint and leaning forward as far as she could, straining her eyes to try and see what was ahead of her. Nothing; the interior of the ship was an oppressive, crushing blackness, the only illumination the very faint glow given off by a few distant struts or walkways that crossed the length of the area.

“What do I do, what do I – wait,” she suddenly said, patting herself down. She bit back a groan. _Idiot_ , she thought. She was still morphed, all she had to do was find…

Her helmet! Her hands groping desperately around the cockpit, settled on it just where she always left it, on the floor next to the seat; she grabbed hold of it and slammed it down over her head, watching the reassuring digital readout of her heads-up display pop into view on her visor. Kim tapped her forehead over her right eye and two beams of light erupted from her helmet, finally allowing her to see through the front window.

The Zord was still moving at breakneck speed; she deduced the inside of the ship was still a vacuum, and with no air resistance the Zord would keep barreling through the open area until it hit whatever was on the other side. Kim peered through the front window, frantically scanning the void before her for any indication of what lay ahead. The beams of light from her helmet illuminated what looked like the far wall of the area, the twin beams gleaming off the reflective surface. The wall was coming up fast; she looked left, right, up – there!

Another opening in the wall, about the same size as the one she’d entered through. As her Zord steadily closed the distance, she realized she could make out stars twinkling outside through the opening.

The only problem was, the thing was several stories higher up on the wall than where she was heading; if she didn’t change her trajectory, she’d miss the opening entirely and slam into the opposite wall. Kim gave the throttle stick one more halfhearted shake before shoving it away, anxiously drumming her fingers on the back of the pilot’s seat while she wracked her mind for options.

 _Think, Kim, think_ , she told herself. _You need some form of thrust to adjust your trajectory up and to the right. What do you know about how these Zords work in space?_ Billy had told her that in space, in a zero-gravity environment with no air resistance to worry about, as long as you had the proper thrust you could move anything, so as long as she could generate enough power she might have time to get up to the exit. But how was she going to generate that much power without her Zord’s rockets?

When the idea struck her, she almost dismissed it outright as being crazy; at this point, though, what the hell else did she have? Crazy was pretty much her life these days anyway. Kim dashed out of the cockpit and down the narrow access corridor to the external hatch. She grabbed hold of a handle mounted on the wall next to the opening and kicked the emergency release lever.

The hatch was flung open, the entire cabin of the Zord depressurizing in less than a second, every last bit of remaining air yanked violently out into space. Kim was nearly sucked out herself; her feet were pulled forcefully from beneath her, nearly her entire body dragged out through the open hatch until her body weight was pulled taut against the hand gripping the handle. She felt one finger come loose, then another, before she finally grabbed hold with her other hand and used her morph-enhanced strength to pull herself back close enough to plant her feet on the edge of the floor. She let go with one hand and reached straight up, curling her fingers around the railing that encircled the top of the Zord. They usually used those for when the Zords needed to be repaired from the outside, clipping carabiners to the railings so they wouldn’t fall. Now, Kim bent her knees until her butt nearly touched the ledge, let go of the interior handle, and kicked off from the floor, using her gymnastics skills to swing her body around the railing and pull herself back down. She came to a rest on her knees on top of the Zord as it hurtled ceaselessly toward the opposite wall.

Gritting her teeth against the waves of dizziness that threatened to knock her off balance, Kim hooked the toe of a boot under the railing on each side of the Zord and rose shakily to her feet, the far wall growing closer at an even more alarming rate. Finally, having found the best level of balance she figured she’d be able to get, she drew her blaster, took her best guess at the right trajectory, took aim, and squeezed the trigger, feeling the weapon vibrate gently in her hands as it charged up.

“Come on, come on,” she muttered into her helmet, watching the small meter on the back of her blaster move with horrifying slowness toward full. She didn’t think her blaster came close to matching her Zord’s thrusters in terms of sheer power, so she wouldn’t be able to cancel out her forward momentum; hopefully, though, she could alter her course just enough to make it out through the opening and let her inertia do the rest.

She blinked, swallowed hard, and watched the meter move the last few ticks toward full power. One more quick glance at the wall, shaking off the horrible way it looked like the ground rising up to meet her as she fell toward earth, and she braced herself, gripped the handle of her blaster with both hands, and released the trigger.

The blast was immense, a beam of energy as big around as a small car exploding out of the barrel like a train coming out of a tunnel. Even in zero-G, the power of the blast nearly threw her off the Zord; all she could do was shove her feet further under the railings and use every bit of gymnast balance to stay upright. The Zord was flung away from the blaster shot, gradually angling toward the opening. All she could do now was watch the approaching wall and hope she didn’t end up like a bug on a windshield.

The energy blast lasted for several seconds; she had time to take a quick look behind her, and in the brief time before everything went dark again, Kim could make out, in the light of the blaster beam, a massive open space, like an enormous cave, and a structure just like the one on the moon jutting out of another wall like a tumor.

No, not a tumor, she realized – an entire system of walkways and smaller structures connected the central structure to every other part of the ship, including numerous other openings where the smaller fighters could be seen taking off. No, if this thing was anything in this metaphor, it was the ship’s brain, controlling the actions of the larger shell the way she controlled her Zord.

There was something else, too – Kim realized with a start that she could see a gigantic symbol, the same one they had seen on the moon, etched into the wall on the far side of the ship, right next to the opening she’d entered through.

Then, just like that, everything was dark again. Kim bent her knees, holstered her blaster and grabbed hold of the railing with each hand, shining the beams of light from her helmet back toward the oncoming wall.

Which suddenly wasn’t there, her field of view suddenly taken up by the massive tableau of stars outside. Her trajectory wasn’t perfect, though, and the edge of her left wing caught the edge of the opening and sent her spinning out into space; but the second the Zord cleared the opening, the exterior lights blazed to life again, and the stabilizers kicked back in and settled it back to a near stop. Kim extracted herself from the railings, swung back down into the ship and sealed the hatch before reactivating life support and plopping back down into the pilot’s seat. No sooner had she done so than Kat’s voice broke in over the comms, demanding to know where the hell she’d been.

Kim took a few deep breaths to calm back down. She buckled herself in, checked all her systems – amazingly, everything had come back online – and started steering her way back around the ship to the other side before responding.

“I’m here, Kat,” she said, her voice still a little airy with exhilaration. “Have we gotten ahold of Billy yet? He’s gonna want to hear about this.”

* * *

**Inside Alien Structure  
** **Surface of the Moon  
** **11:15 PM PDT**

The first thing Trini became aware of was the pain. A sharp, shooting sensation in her left shoulder, right hip and lower back that pulsed through her body with every beat of her heart, giving her the vague impression of being stuck in a very small box with a swarm of biting insects.

As far as she could tell, she lay on her stomach, one leg twisted awkwardly under the other. She blinked a few times and shook her head inside her helmet in an attempt to clear her vision; all she could see through her visor from this angle was the dull gray metal of the floor, faintly reflecting the lights from her helmet.

She rolled gingerly onto one side, wincing as each new movement brought its own additional spasms of discomfort. Her legs came untangled with a muffled scraping sound; she methodically tested the movement in each joint. Pretty much everything she tested was stiff, sore, and gave an almost audible creak of protest when she moved, but nothing seemed damaged. Groaning, she brought her knees up to her chest and began the slow process of leveraging herself to her feet; she grunted as her elbows and knees popped when she extended them, rising shakily to a stand.

“God, I hate waking up like this,” she grumbled, resting her hands on her thighs. She ran her hands over her torso, making sure her suit wasn’t damaged and she had no apparent injuries. Satisfied, she lifted her head and began to take in her surroundings.

“Rocky?” She called out over a private comm channel. The light from her helmet reflected off of some parts of the wall; she noticed the faint blue-green glow she’d remembered seeing from outside before…

“ _Shit_ ,” she hissed, scanning the wall from which she thought they’d entered. To her dismay and minor horror, no trace remained of the door that had opened for them. The wall before her looked for all the world like a single solid block, as if the door had never been there at all. All stiffness in her joints quickly being wiped away by adrenalin, Trini reached up and tapped the communicator switch on the side of her helmet to try and increase her broadcasting range. “Tommy, Adam, are you guys there?”

No response.

“Jason, Alpha, Zordon, anybody, do you copy?”

Still nothing.

“Fuck,” she grunted, letting her arm drop. “Rocky?” she called again, louder this time. She turned slowly on the balls of her feet, the light from her helmet unable to illuminate much of the cavernous, nearly pitch-black room she now stood in. “Rock, anytime you wanna come out and join me here I’d really appreciate it.”

She paused for a moment and glanced around her. She stood in the middle of a single massive, open space. The floor was entirely composed of the same dull gray material she’d seen up close. The walls appeared to be a less shiny version of the black mineral material that made up the outer hulls of the ships they had seen. From where she stood, the beams of her helmet lights could make out four doorways that led out of the room, which was a rough semicircle, bisected by the massive flat wall where the door had once been. The lack of any light in the room meant she could only see where her lights pierced the blackness in front of her, so she reached up and tapped her helmet near her left temple to switch her visor to thermal.

Trini turned a slow 360, scanning the walls and floor of the room for anything potentially threatening. Before long, she noticed a sizeable heat signature about twelve feet away from her, at ground level. It was several dozen degrees hotter than the surrounding air and roughly human-shaped.

“Oh shit,” she muttered, darting toward the heat source. She flipped her visor back to normal view as she approached to find Rocky, sprawled on the floor of the room and lying unnaturally still. It was only as she grew closer that her helmet lights revealed the growing pool of blood her friend lay in, and the jagged piece of shrapnel protruding from his abdomen.

“Double shit,” Trini hissed. She dropped to her knees beside her companion and gently ran her fingers over the piece of shrapnel. “Rocky?” She asked again, shaking his shoulder a little. She got no response and didn’t like the way his head lolled loosely one way and then the other, as though it wasn’t attached all the way. “Oh, no you don’t, you stupid asshole,” she muttered, sliding two fingers up under his jaw to feel for a pulse. She found one, but it was faint, and nowhere near as fast as she thought it ought to be. She grabbed his hand and squeezed the teleportation button on her communicator. As she’d expected, nothing happened. They were stuck here.

“OK, Rock,” she said, taking a few deep breaths and mentally pulling up everything she’d learned about field medicine from the Command Center’s files and her own Morphin’ Grid-enhanced instincts. “I’m gonna give you another five seconds to wake up or I’m gonna take some drastic measures. Last warning.” She paused and considered her options. If she pulled the piece of shrapnel out, she risked further injuring him to the point that his body couldn’t maintain the morph any longer. On the other hand, the pain might wake him up, and if he was conscious, she could help him focus his connection to the Grid into helping the wound heal; if not fully, at least enough to get him on his feet. Without teleportation, they needed to move as fast as possible, and for all she knew another group of those blue aliens could come flooding into the room any minute now. She figured she could carry him if she absolutely had to, but she didn’t like how much that would likely slow her down.

Mind made up, and Rocky still not moving, she got a good grip on the piece of shrapnel with both hands – it was about the diameter of a softball, but luckily not very wide – and counted out loud to herself.

“One, two, _three!_ ” She yanked as hard as she could and the shrapnel easily popped out; she was relieved to see that it hadn’t gone in very deep, maybe half an inch.

Rocky’s reaction was instantaneous – Trini flinched as his sharp cry of pain blasted into her helmet. He shot upright and came very close to elbowing her in the face before he stopped.

“Tri?” He asked, panting. “What the fuck happ- _AHHH!”_ he grabbed at his side and flopped back onto the floor, writhing in pain.

Trini dropped the piece of shrapnel on the floor and bent back over him, laying a hand in the middle of his chest. “Good morning, sunshine,” she said cheerfully, smiling under her helmet. “You want to do me a favor and try not to die in the next five minutes? I’d rather not have to explore this lunar alien doom cave all by myself.”

“Right, no problem,” Rocky grunted back through clenched teeth. He pressed one gloved hand over the wound and Trini saw the erratic rising and falling of his chest grow steadily more rhythmic as he concentrated all of his energy on trying to heal his injury. After a moment, a faint, dark red glow began to appear around the wound, as Rocky’s Ranger powers began to stitch the wound together. As the wound slowly began to patch itself together, Trini took a moment to take a longer look around them, listening to Rocky’s labored breathing as she slowly panned her head from left to right across the opposite wall from the now-sealed entry way.

The four doorways she’d seen previously could hardly be called doorways at all; they were basically just cracks in the solid black rock of the wall that snaked their way down from the ceiling, gradually widening until they terminated in irregularly shaped openings about twice the height and width of a human where the cracks met the dull grey metal of the floor. She couldn’t see more than a few feet through each passageway, as the corridors beyond seemed to trail outward in all directions, jerking abruptly away from the openings. Trini raised herself up to a crouch and looked back down at Rocky. “You good?” The dull glow around his injury had begun to fade as the healing finished. “We should probably get moving before-“

Trini was cut off by the sudden sound of loud, scraping footsteps that echoed into the room from one of the passageways. Rocky, his injury already nearly fully healed and seemingly forgotten, twisted onto his stomach and pushed himself up onto one knee. “Before exactly that happens,” he finished softly, reaching up and flicking off the exterior lights on his helmet. As Trini went to do the same, she saw him tilt his head toward her. “Sorry.”

She switched off her helmet lights, dropping both of them into crushing darkness, and flicked her eyes left, right and left again to bring up her visor’s infrared setting. “It isn’t your fault,” she said, readying herself for trouble. “I had my lights on too, and we were both set to a private comm frequency.” She leaned over and patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry – no one heard your incredibly girly scream except me.”

He grunted quietly and bit back a laugh. “Fuck, Tri. You sure know how to massage a guy’s ego. Jason’s a lucky man.”

“I am so glad you said _ego_ ,” she replied, listening intently as the footsteps grew ever louder. “And for the record, Jason’s doesn’t need massaging.”

Rocky slowly, dramatically turned his head to face her; she could feel the incredulous gape he wore under the helmet. “Are we talking about the same Jason here?”

Trini’s comeback died on her tongue as a group of the blue alien creatures began to pour into the room, spilling out of one of the passageways like a swarm of roaches. She raised her blaster and felt Rocky do the same beside her, but the creatures didn’t seem to notice them at first; instead, they bustled into the room out of one passage, glanced around for a few moments, and then the group as a whole turned and started to move toward one of the other doorways.

“What’re they doing?” Rocky asked nervously. Trini could hear his finger rubbing absently along the side of his blaster. “Can they not see us?”

“I wouldn’t think that would matter,” Trini said, looking from one of the creatures to another. “Everything we’ve seen so far has indicated that they can sense our energy signatures without ever seeing us at all. The fact that it’s dark shouldn’t matter to them.”

“And yet you turned your lights off,” Rocky said quietly. Trini shrugged.

“Old habits,” she said, drumming her fingers on her blaster. “Wait.”

The creatures had come to a sudden stop, milling around near the opening they’d started to approach and shifting around nervously, like someone who sensed they were being watched. She watched with a mounting trepidation as several of their heads began to swivel in her and Rocky’s direction; one or two of them even took a step their way.

“Wait for it,” she whispered, leveling her blaster at the nearest alien. “Don’t shoot unless they make the first move.”

She could tell that plan didn’t sit well with Rocky, her fellow ranger bouncing slightly on the balls of his feet as they waited for one of the aliens to lunge at them.

But none of them did. After a long, tense moment, the entire group of creatures turned as one and moved off down the other corridor, their steps scraping and thumping off the floor and echoing off the walls as they went.

Trini and Rocky lowered their blasters and glanced at each other. “What…what exactly did we just see?” Rocky asked, holstering his blaster and moving a hand up to the switch for his helmet light.

“I’m not sure,” Trini said, shaking her head. “But we’re in no position to be looking gift horses in the mouth.” She took a few tentative steps forward and peered through the doorway the creatures had entered from. “This is where they came from. Come on, let’s see what we can find.”

“I’m a little more interested in where they were going,” Rocky said, moving toward the corridor the creatures had left through. Before he had taken even three steps toward it, though, a shimmer seemed to go through the wall, and the entire opening – not just the doorway, but the entire crack in the wall, all the way up to the ceiling – vanished, and was replaced by a solid rock face. Rocky jerked to a stop, the soles of his boots scraping on the floor. “Or, you know, your way works too.”

Trini looked from the place where the opening had been to the far wall. “Well I guess we know where the other opening went. Is there a crease or anything?”

Rocky ran a hand over the newly-closed wall. “No, nothing. It’s like the damn thing just phased out of existence.” He turned back to face her. “How the fuck could they do something like that?”

“I don’t know,” Trini said for what felt like the millionth time. “As far as I know, there isn’t anything in any of our records of this kind of technology. I’ll have to check with Billy about it when we get back.”

“If we ever get out of here,” Rocky said.

“Well we aren’t making any progress on that standing here with our thumbs in our asses.” She gestured with her head down the passage she still stood next to. “Let’s get moving before this one closes up too.”

They followed the corridor for several tense, quiet minutes, winding their way around random, jagged corners, their helmet lights casting a weird, greenish-blue glow off the walls around them. Finally, the passageway terminated in a round, open room, about the size of a studio apartment; another roughly triangular doorway led out on the other side. The most notable thing about this new room, however, was that right at the edge of the doorway the floor dropped away. The two rangers came to a halt at the edge of the floor and glanced down, letting the sound of their scraping footsteps echo off the walls into gradual silence.

Trini turned and glanced at Rocky, who was still staring down into the room. “Are you seeing this too?”

He nodded and let out a long breath. “Trying to decide whether this is good news or bad.”

Inside this room, the floor of black reflective material that made up the rest of the structure dropped away about five feet down into a depressed crater, the bottom of which appeared to be the surface of the moon.

“So far today nothing new has been good,” Trini muttered, resting her hands on her hips. “Wait. Look.” She pointed into the room. Rocky turned his head to follow her finger.

At what, to Trini’s nearest estimation, was the exact center of the room, a piece of the familiar shiny black mineral that comprised the rest of the structure jutted out of the floor. The piece was about five and a half feet tall, and roughly hourglass shaped. It widened at the top into a flat surface about the size of a table, though it was slanted slightly and had a lip at the bottom, so it looked more like a podium. Resting on top of that flat surface was what looked like a large book, at least three feet square. Trini could see lines and lines of text weaving their way across the pages, but it was too small for her to read any of it at this distance and she doubted it was in any Earth language anyway.

“Any chance that’s the new _Game of Thrones_ book?” Rocky asked lamely, his voice doing nothing to hide his uneasiness.

Trini shared it. “Personally, I’d prefer _The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo_ , but I doubt they get either of those out here.”

Rocky chuckled gratefully. “Man, Barnes and Noble is missing out on that sweet Moon demographic.” Trini barely had time to smirk when they heard more footsteps approaching from the opposite end of the room.

“Shit. More incoming.” The two of them backed up four or five steps to where the hallway behind them had curved away from the room. Instinctively, Trini reached up and flicked off her helmet light; despite a slightly bewildered glance in her direction, Rocky didn’t ask any questions and followed suit.

“I thought you said turning our lights off wouldn’t make any difference,” Rocky said softly. Trini licked her lips and swallowed.

“I know,” she said, unsure of how to verbalize this thought. “I just have this weird feeling.”

Rocky had opened his mouth to ask another question when something cut him off that neither one of them was expecting. 

A voice was echoing in from the opposite hallway. It was piercing, almost painfully high-pitched, and beneath its shrieking cackle could be heard the low gurgling noise that the creatures had made. As the voice moved closer, another one joined it, this one deeper, more gravelly, a rough, scratchy sound that was almost like a growl, with that same insectile gibbering underneath it. Neither of them could make out words – it was a language they didn’t know – but they could tell the voices were coming closer.

Trini and Rocky made eye contact through their helmets, both of their eyes widening. “Does that sound like…?” Rocky started to ask. Trini cut him short, nodding frantically and putting a finger to her lips. She knew their private comm channel kept their voices muted to the outside world, but she could hear the voices getting closer and wanted no distractions.

At that moment, the voices increased in both volume and clarity; the speakers had entered the room. Rocky and Trini leaned carefully around the corner and watched in growing amazement as four all-too-familiar figures entered the room in front of them and casually hopped down to the lunar dust surface.

Rita. Zedd. Goldar. Scorpina.

“Holy Jesus _fuck_ ,” Rocky whispered, his hand going reflexively to his blaster. Trini had the wherewithal to grab him by the wrist and hold the weapon in its holster, but her heart was pounding against her ribcage and her mouth had suddenly gone dry. She shook her head quickly, trying to clear her mind, and blinked several times before getting a closer look at the four figures before her.

“Hold on,” she said, partly to Rocky but partly to herself. Something was different, something was… _wrong_ about their familiar adversaries. The four of them seemed deformed somehow, as if they’d been gruesomely mutated in some way. Rita and Scorpina, in the parts of their faces where their eyes had been, now sported massive, orange, glistening compound eyes just like the ones the other alien creatures had; instead of her normal, human legs, Rita now had legs that bent backward at the knee and ended in a shapeless mass where the foot had once been. Goldar’s eyes hadn’t changed; instead, his normal, canine mouth had been replaced by a set of horizontal mandibles that reminded Trini of Predator. The blue warrior also had a second pair of arms erupting from his chest through two new holes in his golden armor; Scorpina had these, as well, making her seem even more crustacean than she already had. She seemed to have adapted much more quickly, though, as each of her four hands now absently twirled a different weapon, three small swords and what looked like some kind of hatchet.

Of the four, Zedd was the least changed; Trini’s first thought was that this had something to do with the fact that there wasn’t a whole lot of him left that was organic to start with. He still wore the silver visor with its ominous black faceplate, still carried that obnoxious staff with the enormous “Z” at the top; apart from now being a corpselike blue color instead of his usual red, Trini couldn’t discern all that much that had changed about him. As she looked a second time, she realized that he wasn’t the only one: Rita and Scorpina’s skins had both also turned a sickly blue color, like they’d been dead for a few days. Only Goldar, who was blue to start with, appeared unchanged.

“Aren’t they supposed to be _dead_?” Rocky hissed, still gripping the butt of his blaster in its holster. Their four enemies had approached the book in the center of the room and were now clustered around it, holding a hushed conversation.

“We’ve thought they were dead before, haven’t we?” Trini asked, never taking her eyes off of them. “What the fuck else is new?”

Rocky blew a frustrated breath out through his nose. “Fucking _bitch_ ,” he groaned, resting his hands on his knees. “The one good thing about all this and they have to fuck that all up too.” He looked back up at the room before them and seemed to notice something. “What do you think they’re talking about?”

“I can’t tell,” Trini said, shaking her head. “They’re talking too softly and I don’t know the language anyway.”

“You think it has something to do with that book?”

“I don’t know why else they’d be in here.”

“God, Billy’s gonna have a field day with this.”

Before Trini could respond, the four figures in the room seemed to reach some kind of agreement. Three of them backed up, and Rita stood before the book, reading out loud for several seconds in yet another entirely different alien language Trini didn’t understand, this one a guttural series of extended vowels and hissing, almost whistling consonants. Rita stopped abruptly, letting her last rasping syllable echo around the room; Trini tensed and waited for something to happen, but nothing did. Their four enemies seemed pleased with themselves, though, and filed out of the room back the way they’d come.

Trini and Rocky waited until the sound of their footsteps disappeared back down the corridor before dropping down into the room as quietly as they could. Trini immediately moved toward the book, running her finger over one of the pages looking for words or language markers she recognized, but the characters laid out in front of her were wholly unfamiliar.

“I can’t make any of this out,” she said. Rocky had his back to her, his gaze darting from one entrance to the other, his hand still resting on his blaster. She turned back to the book. “We should take it with us, though, see what Zordon and Alpha can make of it.” She tentatively reached up and swung the book shut on what she thought was the front cover; the book was bound in a thick, scaly material that looked like it was probably the skin of some long-extinct monster on a planet a few thousand lightyears away. When the book closed, Trini did a double take. “Rocky!”

He whipped around, probably hearing an imminent attack in her frantic tone. Instead, she just pointed at the cover of the book. “Look familiar?” Embossed on the cover of the book, in place of a title, author or anything else, was the same symbol they’d seen carved into the moon’s surface outside.

“That seems fairly definitive, doesn’t it?” Rocky said, turning his attention back to the doorways. “Now Indiana Jones that fucker and let’s get the fuck outta here.”

Trini curled her fingers around the edges of the book, suddenly reluctant. Rocky’s pop culture references, pertinent as always, had reminded her that pulling the book off the podium might have consequences she couldn’t possibly anticipate. She stood there weighing her options so long the room began to echo with the scraping of approaching footsteps again; Rocky drew his blaster and swung it from one entrance to the other.

“Trini, if you’re gonna take that fucking book you better do it now!” He yelled. “We’re about to have serious company.”

_Fuck it_ , Trini thought. _We need all the information about these things we can get. We don’t have time for safe plays._ She tightened her grip, took a deep breath and yanked the book toward her. She had time to notice that it was surprisingly heavy, even more so than she’d expected, before the whole world came crashing down around her.

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Main Chamber  
** **11:15 PM PDT**

Billy hadn’t been facing Jason when everything went to hell; all he heard were three very distinctive sounds: the sound of flesh striking flesh, Jason’s dad grunting in pain and surprise, and then the far more disquieting sound of bone hitting metal, a sickening, reverberating thud that echoed off the walls of the Main Chamber. He spun away from the console he was operating in time to see Jason’s father crumpling to the floor, blood already seeping from his head. Jason was just turning away from him, his fist still clenched, seemingly entirely unaware of Billy watching him.

“Jesus!” Billy exclaimed. Jason started as if slapped and whipped his head toward him, raising a hand in front of him.

“Billy, wait –“

But Billy had already reacted, smacking a button on the console behind him to teleport Jason back to his quarters. He flipped the switch to mute communications to and from the Main Chamber before striding across the room to where Rick Scott lay prone on the floor. “Alpha, Jason’s probably on his way back here already. The second he walks back into this room put a forcefield around him, would ya?”

“Of course, Billy,” Alpha said timidly, moving toward another console.

“Zordon, if we have to, can you stand by to teleport Mr. Scott to the Med Bay?”

“Yes, Billy,” Zordon replied, as implacably calm as ever. Billy knelt beside Jason’s father and gently rolled him onto his back. At his touch, Jason’s father jerked awake, gasping and trying to sit up only to wince in pain and slump back to the floor, one hand clutching the wound on his head.

“Ow,” Rick Scott groaned weakly, pulling his hand away from his forehead to behold it covered in blood. “Someone get the number on that truck?”

“That truck was your son’s fist,” Billy muttered, leaning over and offering a hand. “Do you think you can stand?”

“Yeah, no problem,” Rick grunted, grabbing onto Billy’s outstretched hand and pulling himself up. He got about as far as a seated position before he had to stop and steady himself. “OK,” he muttered to himself, taking a few deep breaths. “Here we go.”

“If you don’t think you can do it we could just teleport you,” Billy offered, glancing over his shoulder at the door to see if Jason had come storming back in.

Rick didn’t seem to notice that. “And add my puke to the blood I’m already getting all over everything? No thanks.” He squeezed onto Billy’s arm again, so hard this time that Billy feared he might break his wrist, and slowly raised himself up to his unsteady feet. Billy released his grip and took half a step back, but Rick wobbled slightly so Billy stepped forward again and put Rick’s free arm around his shoulders. “I’m good, I’m good,” Rick said, trying to sound reassuring, but the wobble in his voice didn’t make Billy any less apprehensive.

“Sure you are,” Billy replied, letting Rick lean against him as the two of them began to make their way toward the door to the Med Bay. _Don’t come back in here, Jase_ , he thought to himself. _Please, you big idiot, for once in your life, take the hint and stay put._

It wasn’t to be. The two of them were barely halfway to the door when Jason came charging through it, looking angrier than ever. Upon seeing Billy helping his father walk toward the door, Jason moved toward them only for Alpha to flip a switch, which lowered a cylindrically shaped forcefield from the ceiling to the floor, sealing Jason into a space about as big around as a Porta-Potty.

Billy had been in the process of opening his mouth and raising his free hand to try and placate Jason, but Alpha beat him to the punch. He closed his mouth, lowered his hand and pushed forward, trying to get Rick out of there before things got too uncomfortable.

Things didn’t work out for him on that score, either. As they were dragging themselves past the forcefield, Rick suddenly seemed to notice that Jason was there.

“Jason? What the hell happened? Did –“ he stopped abruptly, eyes widening, his hand clenching tighter to his wound as the realization hit. “Oh my god, you fucking hit me, didn’t you?” He pulled toward the forcefield, nearly yanking Billy off his feet. “What the fuck is wrong with you? What were you _thinking_? Do you have any idea what you could have –“

“Whoa, hey, losing mass quantities of blood, possibly concussed,” Billy reminded him, tugging him gently back toward the door. “Don’t really have time for this.”

“It’s OK, Billy,” Jason said quietly, stepping right up to the wall of the forcefield.

Billy just glared at him. “You shut the hell up and stay out of this. I have to get your _father_ back to the Med Bay so we can fix this wound that you caused.” Before Jason could respond, he turned over his shoulder. “Alpha, is there any way we can get those tables to work on Jason’s dad without Jason or his coin?”

“I’m afraid not, Billy,” Alpha replied. “That equipment is made specifically to work through the Morphin Grid. Someone with no connection to the Grid will have no way of activating it.”

“So what does that mean, then?” Rick asked, talking toward the floor. “Am I just screwed?”

“No,” Billy said, readjusting Rick’s weight on his shoulders. “It just means I’ll have to be taking care of this myself. I’ve been looking for a live subject to practice on.” Rick raised an eyebrow. Billy sighed and rolled his eyes. “That was a joke.”

“Or you could let me out,” Jason piped up. Billy ignored him but Zordon didn’t.

“That will not be happening, Jason,” the Eltarian said. “You and I need to talk.” Jason visibly gulped; Billy took no small satisfaction in the way his face paled by several shades.

“What about the mission, Zordon?” Even after all these years Billy was stunned by Jason’s sheer audacity. “The others could still need my help up there!”

A renewed flush of anger rose up in Billy’s throat; he stopped, pivoted around while still supporting Rick’s weight, and glared at Jason.

“Are you fucking serious?” Jason’s eyes flicked from Zordon to Billy, narrowing slightly at the rage in his voice. “Do you have any idea what you were just asking them to do? You told them to basically drop every weapon they had on an alien structure that we’d already shown to be impenetrable while two of our friends were still inside and two more were standing right there! You got so angry at just the mere mention of these things that you went into some kind of berserker blood rage and suddenly decided that the rest of us were expendable the second this got personal for you. Trust me, we’re helping them more by cutting you off from them than anything you could possibly do right now.”

Jason stepped back from the edge of the forcefield and crossed his arms stubbornly over his chest. “Easy for you to say, man. You didn’t have to –“

But Billy was already dragging Rick back toward the door. “I swear to fucking god Jason, if you play the dead family card on me right now I will shove your morpher so far up your ass you’ll morph every time you swallow.” He didn’t wait to see Jason’s reaction. “Alpha, can you redirect all external communications to the MedBay? I’m guessing Zordon won’t want to be disturbed for this part.”

“Certainly, Billy.” Billy heard Alpha’s clanging footsteps cross the Main Chamber toward the main communication terminal, but didn’t bother turning around to see that he got there. Slowly, shakily, he eased Jason’s father across the threshold and into the corridor to the MedBay, only letting out the breath he’d been unconsciously holding after the door had shut behind them.

The two of them moved silently for a long moment before Rick sighed and muttered, “Damn it. This is exactly what I was afraid of.”

Billy eyed him sidelong. “Sorry?”

Rick licked his lips and winced a little as a new wave of pain went through his head. “Jason’s always had a bit of an explosive temper. And ever since he was a kid, it would manifest itself in these…I don’t know, outbursts, where he’d just completely lose it. He told me once that sometimes he would literally see red.” He paused for a moment, glancing back over his shoulder as if unsure whether Jason could still hear him. “When he was little we thought it was just tantrums, but then when he was four he beat up one of his cousins pretty badly. He felt so guilty about that he didn’t hardly come out of his room or talk or even eat for a week; that’s what got him into martial arts in the first place – his child psychologist told him it would help him improve his self-control. That was why it was so important to him, why he took the training so seriously: as far as he was concerned, that was the only thing protecting the people around him from what would happen if he lost control.” The two of them reached the MedBay door and Billy readjusted Rick’s weight on his shoulders as they stepped inside.

“When we went back to his room a few hours ago,” Rick continued, “I asked him if he was going to be OK getting right back into this so quickly. I warned him about the kinds of things a desire for revenge could make someone do, and I wanted his assurance that he at least thought he could control himself.” For the first time, he turned to look directly at Billy, and their eyes met. “He couldn’t look me in the eye when he said it. That was why I wanted to be right there the whole time, in case things got out of hand.” He peeled his hand off his forehead and examined it, flexing his fingers through the congealing blood. “Fucking fat lot of good it did anyone.”

Billy didn’t quite know how to respond to that, so he focused on getting Rick onto the nearest bed. Jason’s father grunted softly as he leveraged his weight up onto the platform, wincing as every exertion sent fresh waves of pain and dizziness through his body. By the time a set of coherent words had formed in his mind, Billy already had a roll of bandages in his hand and was peeling Rick’s fingers away from the wound.

“Here, let me look.” With his hand out of the way, Billy could see that thankfully the wound wasn’t too big; it was just bleeding a lot, like head wounds do, so it looked more dramatic than it had a right to. Billy nodded and half-smiled at Rick. “It’s actually not that bad considering what happened. You probably don’t even need stitches.” He reconsidered the bandages and set them next to Rick on the bed. “Hang on a sec.”

He turned and strode back across the room, raising his wrist to his mouth as he went. “Alpha, do we have comms in here?”

“Affirmative, Billy.”

“Excellent.” Billy lowered his wrist and looked up slightly, speaking into the empty room. “Rangers, do you copy?”

The room was immediately bombarded with voices, five different people simultaneously demanding answers. Billy jerked a little in surprise and spoke again, almost shouting this time.

“Guys. _Guys!_ ” The room went quiet and Billy went on. “One at a time, please. I’ll defer to Tommy since he’s running this whole thing.”

Tommy barely let Billy finish his sentence. “What the fuck is going on down there, Billy? Jason started losing his shit and then all of a sudden we lost all contact with you. What happened?”

“Jason finished losing his shit,” Billy said, rummaging through a drawer and lifting out a small silver tool about the size and shape of a hot glue gun. “His dad tried to get his attention and Jase knocked him headfirst into a console. We’re in the MedBay right now.” He loaded a small cylinder of liquid into the tool as Aisha broke in, talking over Tommy and completely ignoring Billy’s first request.

“So what, he just gets to walk away after he damn near gets the rest of us fucking killed?”

“Shut up, Sha,” Kat interjected before Billy could. “There was never even a remote chance of that actually happening and you know it. Besides, we all sort of saw this coming, didn’t we? Considering nearly his entire family died like an hour and a half ago?”

“We can hash all that out later,” Adam said, sounding even calmer than Billy. “Did you say you were in the MedBay? Is Mr. Scott hurt that badly?”

“I’m fine,” Rick said. “Just a bump on the head.”

“A bump on his head that broke the skin and left blood all over the floor,” Billy corrected, carrying the small tool and an extra cartridge over to Rick and setting them down on the table. “And I still need to check for a concussion.”

“Jesus,” Tommy said softly. “Where’s Jason? He didn’t try anything on you, did he?”

“No,” Billy said quickly, before Aisha could get riled up again. “And I think what happened with his father was just an accident, anyway. It was reactionary, he just got a little too worked up. You’ve all seen what grief can do to people.”

“So where is he now?” It was Tanya who spoke this time, her voice echoing through the MedBay as Billy raised the small tool, which Rick now recognized as some kind of handheld injector, and pressed it against his forehead.

“He’s back in the Main Chamber in a forcefield; I assume he’s getting the tongue-lashing of the century from Zordon.”

“Fucking better be,” Aisha grumbled, but much of the edge had been taken out of her anger. Billy pulled the trigger on the injector and Rick flinched.

“ _Ow!_ ” He hissed, raising a hand halfway to his face and then stopping as if having second thoughts and lowering it again. “What the hell was that?”

“Local anesthetic,” Billy said quietly, “so you won’t feel it when I do this.” He slotted the other cartridge into the injector, reached up with his free hand and pinched the two sides of the wound together before squeezing the hot, viscous liquid over the wound. As he worked, he spoke to the empty room again. “He is, Sha. Don’t worry, I saw it when we were leaving. And if it makes you guys feel any better, I got in a few pretty good shots of my own on our way out.”

“Atta boy, Billy,” Tommy said, and Billy could almost hear the grin in his voice. “Now can we get back to what we came here to do?”

“Sure,” Billy said eagerly. “Any luck on getting through to Rocky or Trini?”

“Not yet,” Tanya replied, “but I got a chance to poke my head inside for a minute. I can confirm that Squatt, Baboo, Rito and Finster are dead. Other than that we’ve just been playing bouncer out here.”

“Christ,” Rick whispered, tightening his grip slightly on the edge of the table.

“Thanks Tan, but I already heard that before everything went nuts. Anyone else?”

He didn’t get anything but scattered affirmations of what Tanya had just told him. Billy was about to ask if there was anything they needed him to do when something occurred to him. “Wait a minute,” he said. “I’ve only heard from five of you and I’ve never heard Kim stay silent this long. Where the hell is she?”

“Around the same time you muted comms I gave her the OK to get an up-close look at that main ship where all the little ones came out from,” Tommy said. “I haven’t heard from her since. Kat, do you have a visual?”

“Not right this moment,” came Kat’s Australian lilt. “Let me check again.” She went quiet for a second and Billy took the opportunity to hold one of the empty cartridges up in front of Rick’s face and move it slowly back and forth.

“Can you follow that with your eyes and keep your head still?” He watched for a moment just to make sure his eyes were tracking. Satisfied, he lowered it and shoved it into his pocket. “Any sleepiness or fatigue? Dizziness? Nausea? Anything you don’t remember?”

“Only a little bit of dizziness,” Rick replied. “And only when I try to move too fast.”

Billy nodded. “OK. I can’t know for sure without an MRI but I don’t think you have a concussion. You probably ought to go lay down for a minute, though.”

Rick shook his head firmly. “No way, kid. I’m in this now as much as the rest of you. I’ll get some rest once everyone’s back.”

Billy frowned and tried to work up an authoritative retort, but before he could muster up the courage, Kat broke back in over the comms.

“There you are, Kim! Where the hell have you been?”

Kim didn’t reply right away; Billy thought he could hear her panting a little. “I’m here, Kat,” she finally said, her voice still a little airy with exhilaration. “Have we gotten ahold of Billy yet? He’s gonna want to hear about this.” 

* * *

**Pterodactyl Zord Cockpit  
** **Several Hundred Miles Above the Moon  
** **11:30 PM PDT**

Adam had never really considered himself the world’s best multitasker; he’d read somewhere once that multitasking wasn’t even a real thing people could do, and that paying attention to two things at once was really just paying half attention to each thing. Right now, though, he was doing the best he could to maintain a visual on Aisha and Tanya down on the lunar surface, while at the same time following along with the chaotic conversation coming through his comms and also making sure to keep the Pterodactyl Zord in one piece for when he brought it back.

When Kim had broken back in over the comm, all hyped up and out of breath, he’d glanced up at his scanner to try and see if she’d really been where they said. There was her signal, as strong as ever, headed back toward the moon from the massive alien ship.

“I’m gonna want to hear what, Kim?” Billy asked; Adam glanced away from the scanner and back down toward the surface, where the magnifiers in the Zord’s windows let him see Aisha and Tanya where they had taken up position next to the bizarre black structure, keeping watch for any sign of Rocky or Trini.

“OK, so…while we were dealing with that whole squadron of smaller ships that came out of the bigger one, I noticed that the opening in the side where they were coming out of was still open,” Kim said, words pouring through the speaker as she tried excitedly to get everything out at once. “So I thought maybe I could take a peek and see what I could find out about these blue guys from what was in there.”

“Whoa, whoa, Kim, hang on a minute,” Adam said, holding up a hand as though she was sitting right in front of him. “The second Rocky and Trini went inside that building on the moon we lost all signal from them and they haven’t been able to get out.”

“Which is why I gave her strict orders to only get a visual on the inside and not under any circumstances actually breach the threshold,” Tommy cut in. There was a beat where no one said anything else before he added, “Which judging from how out of breath you are I’m guessing you chose to immediately ignore.”

“OK, OK, you caught me,” Kim said sheepishly. “But listen, I-“

Tommy didn’t let her continue. “Did you ever have any intention of listening to me, Kim?” There was a tightness to his voice that sounded to Adam as though he was trying very hard to keep from screaming. “Or did you just completely tune out the second I gave you clearance to go over there?” Kim started to reply but Tommy jumped in again, his voice growing louder this time. “Hell, why even bother asking for clearance if you were just going to ignore everything that came after?”

“I had _every_ intention of listening to whatever conditions you put on that clearance, Tommy,” Kim replied, with a forced level of calm that Adam could smell from a mile away but that he knew would grate on every nerve Tommy had. “But when I got over there all I could see inside was darkness so I figured I’d just pop in really quickly, just long enough to run every scan I could think of and then pop back out again. Now before you freak out,” she said quickly, as Tommy inhaled hard enough for them all to hear through the comm. “I’m fully aware of what happened with Rocky and Trini. But all we knew about that was that we were cut off from comms and teleportation. All of that’s happened before so I figured even if the same happened to me I’d be able to handle it. Now can I continue or would you rather keep busting my nonexistent balls?”

“Kim,” Billy cut in sternly. “I think I speak for everyone when I say we’d all like to hear this. Especially since Jason’s dad and I are basically stuck in here until Zordon’s done with him in there.”

“OK, so before I went in there I turned my Zord’s exterior lights on and got the scanners ready to run as many different readings as they could all at once. But the second I got past the threshold into the ship, _everything_ on my Zord went completely dark. The lights went out, the weapons went dead, the fucking engine even stopped. The whole thing was a dead stick. I was lucky there was already air inside or I would probably have suffocated.”

“What about your armor?” Adam asked, swooping around for another pass over the site of the structure on the moon. “Did your morph get knocked out too?”

“No,” Kim said, “and I’m damn lucky it didn’t, cause I probably wouldn’t have made it out otherwise.”

“So even though the Zord went totally dead, you stayed morphed and your weapons still worked?” Billy asked.

“I only had a chance to try my blaster,” Kim replied. “I never tried to summon my Power Bow. I don’t know what would’ve happened if I had.”

“So how did you get back out of there if your Zord was completely dead?” Aisha asked. A quick glance through the magnified window told Adam she was standing with her back to the structure, hands on her hips, staring out at the moon’s surface, probably making sure no more of the blue aliens came wandering by.

The grin that broke out on Kim’s face was audible in her voice. “Oh my god, Sha, you should’ve seen it, it was like some full-on _Matrix_ shit. I had to climb out on top of the Zord, hook my feet into the bars, charge my blaster up to full power and use it as a fucking rocket to launch the Zord up and out the other side of the ship. And the second it cleared the other side everything came back on again like nothing had happened. It’s flying fine now, too, you’d never think anything had happened to it.”

“And there was no indication of why that happened?” Billy asked. “You didn’t go through any kind of field or anything when you crossed the opening?”

“No, not that I saw or felt,” Kim said. “And none of my scans actually went through so I’m limited to what I actually saw with my own eyes.”

“And what exactly was that?” Tommy asked, sounding genuinely curious now. “Tell me that at the very least you pulling this bullshit got us some workable intel.”

“As a matter of fact,” Kim started to say, the smallest hint of a laugh even starting to creep in, but just then Adam noticed something out the window of the Pterodactyl.

“What the hell?” he muttered to himself, craning his head around for a better look. At that moment, Aisha and Tanya seemed to notice the movement as well; Adam saw both of them whip their heads around at the same instant both of their voices came blasting through the comms.

“What the fuck?”

“Holy shit!”

“Fuck _me_ ,” Adam muttered, siting up straight and gunning his engines around to get in closer to where the others stood on the surface. “Guys? It’s gonna have to wait, we got something happening up here.”

That would turn out to be the understatement of the century. As Adam, Aisha and Tanya looked on, the black structure on the moon had literally begun to shake, throwing up moon dust in every direction from where it met the ground. It shook so hard, in fact, that cracks began to appear in its surface, the shiny, jagged black rock splitting open with such force that small chunks of the stuff were tossed out across the Moon’s surface.

“Adam, what is it?” Tommy’s voice broke in. “What’s happening up there?”

“It’s the alien building,” Adam replied, starting to circle around the area, his fingers ready on his weapon controls. “It just started vibrating. Like, vibrating so hard it’s starting to shake itself apart. There are cracks forming in it as we speak. Sha, Tanya, you guys seeing anything different?”

“Whole wall just fell down over here,” Aisha said; Adam could see her bounding over the lunar surface, following the boundary of the structure. “This thing is coming down like a building imploding.”

“Any sign of Rocky and Trini?” Adam asked, peering through his magnified windows for anything resembling crimson or yellow.

“None here,” Aisha said, “Tanya, you see anything?”

“Wait a minute,” Tanya replied. Adam suddenly realized that from his current position, his view of Tanya was blocked by the structure. He gently guided the Pterodactyl toward where he’d last seen her.

“Tanya?” When she didn’t immediately respond, Adam tried again. “Tanya!”

“I’m here, Adam,” she answered after a moment. “Sha, get to my position ASAP. You’re not gonna believe this.”

* * *

**The Surface of the Moon  
** **11:40 PM PDT**

Just when Aisha had thought she had finally gotten used to the screwy gravity on the Moon’s surface, she instinctively tried to dig in with the balls of her feet and sprint the remaining distance between herself and Tanya, only to bounce her body up off the ground and leave her kicking at empty space.

“ _Fuck_ ,” she grunted, rolling her shoulders and taking several deep breaths to try and slow her heart rate. As her feet touched solid ground again, she consciously brought herself back into the long, loping strides she’d been taking the rest of her time here.

The alien structure was still shaking, the clouds of dust it threw up occasionally blocking her view of what lay before her. Even though it made no noise, like anything else in space, she could feel the tremors it sent through the rock under her feet. Every now and then, she would glance over at it and see another layer crumble off the outside, revealing the bizarrely shaped structure underneath – it looked rather like an enormous black geode erupting from the lunar surface.

“OK, Tan, I’m almost to you,” she said, rounding the corner toward where Tanya awaited on the other side. “What’s so incredible that I had to come all the way over here to see – oh, shit!”

The cloud of dust in front of her had cleared to reveal Tanya, standing with her back to her, blaster raised and pointed toward the crumbling structure. Aisha had followed where Tanya was aiming to see the fallen, jagged pieces of the outer wall of the structure lying in a rough jumble on the ground a few yards away – and, racing toward them from inside, an enormous herd of the monstrous blue alien creatures, pouring over the rubble like a tidal wave surging up onto shore.

What really drew Aisha’s attention, though, were the two figures the herd was chasing, their crimson and yellow forms standing in stark contrast to the black of the alien rock and the gray of the moon - Rocky and Trini, the latter holding a book that was nearly as big as she was, the former turning back every few feet to fire pot shots from his blaster over one shoulder.

“Rocky! Trini!” Aisha took up position next to Tanya, drawing her blaster as well. “Make yourselves small, we’ll cover you!”

No sooner were the words out of her mouth than Tommy’s voice came blasting through her comms. “Did you say Rocky and Trini? What’s happening down there, Sha?”

“We’ve got Rocky, Trini and about a million party crashers down here, Flyboy,” Aisha yelled back, squeezing off a few precision shots at the occasional alien that looked like it was gaining on her friends. “We could use a ride out anytime.”

Rocky and Trini had reached them by then; Trini went past her, both arms wrapped around the giant book she held, a sight so ridiculous that Aisha nearly laughed in spite of herself. Rocky ground to a halt next to her, forming a three-person line in front of Trini, blasters raised. They moved slowly back away from the structure, using their shots to keep the alien herd from getting too close.

“Working on it, Sha,” Billy said. “I just need a second to patch into the teleportation controls from the Med Bay.” There was a pause as if the words had reminded him of something. “Is anybody hurt?”

“No Billy, we’re fine,” Trini said. “Rocky might need some stitches but the morph may have already healed him by now.”

“I’m fine, Billy,” Rocky piped up between blaster shots. “It wasn’t anything the morph couldn’t handle.” He squeezed off another round, and Aisha saw an alien’s head pop into its gooey black blood as the bolt of energy made contact. “So what’d we miss?”

“That is a _very_ long story,” Adam said; Aisha glanced up to see the Pterodactyl fly overhead, a volley of blaster shots cutting into the herd as it went by.

“And where the hell is Jason?” Trini asked. “I would’ve thought he’d be all over this.”

“Jason’s a little preoccupied with losing his absolute shit right now,” Aisha retorted, glancing back at Trini over her shoulder. “He’s probably right in the middle of the chewing out of the millennium from Zordon.”

“What? Why?” Trini asked incredulously.

“He can tell you himself when you get here, Tri,” Billy said. “OK, everybody, teleportation commencing.”

The four of them finally felt their stomachs start to tingle, saw the colored sparks begin to form around them, and then, with that familiar feeling of being yanked away by a giant hook in their chests, the moon disappeared and they found themselves standing in the Med Bay.

Trini immediately let the huge book in her arms drop to the concrete floor. Aisha saw Tanya jump a little as the sharp sound echoed around the room. As they demorphed, Billy came jogging over and knelt down next to it.

“What the hell is this, Tri?” he asked, unable to hide his excitement. He ran his hands over the strange leather that bound the giant tome, tracing the symbol on the front.

“We found it inside that building,” Trini said, kneeling down beside him. “It was open when we found it but the language inside didn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen before.” She pointed at the cover. “And if you haven’t already noticed by now, this is the same symbol that was laid out on the moon’s surface.”

Billy lifted the front cover of the book so he could see the strange writing inside. He let out a small laugh of disbelief. “Amazing.”

Rocky turned to face them, one hand absently holding a spot on his abdomen. “You want to know what’s _really_ fucking amazing? Three guesses who was reading that thing when we found it. And the first two don’t count.”

Aisha felt a pit begin to form in her stomach. “Oh my god, don’t even fucking say it.”

“Ding ding ding, we have a winner, folks!” Rocky said sharply, a distinct edge audible in his voice. He folded his arms and leaned against a nearby medical bed. “Rita and Zedd are still alive, guys. Goldar and Scorpina, too. We saw them in the same room where we found this book.”

Aisha snorted with disgust. “Perfect. The one bright side out of all this and they have to go and fuck that up too.”

“That’s what I said!” Rocky exclaimed, gesturing toward her with an outstretched hand.

“There’s more,” Trini added. “Whatever happened up there, it…changed them somehow. Mutated them. They look more like those blue things now than they ever looked like humans.”

“Mutated?” Aisha asked. “Mutated how?”

“Oh, you know,” Rocky said. “Extra pairs of arms, big orange bug eyes on their faces, blue skin, legs bending backwards. Typical Lovecraft shit.”

“So you’re saying this thing somehow made them _uglier_?” Aisha asked with exaggerated shock. “Damn, we really are gonna die.”

“At least they’re the only ones,” Tanya offered, leaning next to Rocky. “We’ve confirmed that the others from that bunch are all definitely dead.”

“That’s something, at least,” Rocky said, drumming his fingers on his other arm. “And hey, maybe they got buried under what was left of that thing when it came down on our heads.”

“We can hope, can’t we?” Aisha agreed, catching his eye and smirking playfully. He returned it just as Billy spoke up again.

“Speaking of which, any idea why it suddenly came down like that? Your strongest weapons couldn’t do anything to it and yet it seemed to just shake itself to pieces out of nowhere.”

“That was me,” Trini said. They all turned to look at her. “Or at least I think it was. The thing started shaking the second I grabbed the book off of its little podium.”

Billy nodded, staring at the book for a moment. Then he looked suddenly back up at Trini. “We lost comms with you guys when the thing closed up on you. Were your morphs at all affected by it?”

“Not that I noticed,” Trini answered. “Rocky had a piece of shrapnel in his stomach and the morph was still strong enough to heal it.” Rocky lifted his shirt a little to show them the fading pink line that ran a few inches along his stomach. “And we were both able to summon our blasters without much issue. Why?”

“Kim flew her entire Zord into one of the ships and it just completely shut down,” Billy said, still examining the pages on the inside of the huge book. “But she says it didn’t affect her own morph at all. Your experiences appear to be consistent with that report.”

They all looked up as one at the sound of someone clearing their throat from across the room. Rick Scott sat there, on the edge of one of the beds, a bandage wrapped around his head, arms crossed over his chest, regarding them suspiciously. “So what’s the next step here?” His voice left no room for dismissal; he was a part of this now, and he knew it.

“Lemme answer your question with a question, Papa Scott,” Rocky said, stepping forward. “Where’d that bandage on your head come from?”

Before Rick could respond, Aisha stepped up beside Rocky and pointed at the door to the corridor. “You got Wonder Boy in there to thank for that,” she practically growled. “Papa Scott here had the audacity to try and calm him down during his shit fit and he knocked him headfirst into a console in the Main Chamber.”

“Jason did _what_?” Trini asked, rising to her feet next to Billy. “You can’t be serious.”

“It’s true, Trini,” Billy said. “He and Zordon are in there talking about it right now.”

“And we aren’t getting in there until they’re done,” Rick chimed in, growing a little more impatient. “So while we’re all just waiting for the others to get back, I’ll ask again: what is the next step here?”

The five rangers shared a few glances with each other. Then Trini spoke up. “Well, since I can’t talk to Jason right now, I guess I can go pull up our database on my computer in my room and try and find any information we have on that symbol or the language in that book.”

“I have the dead alien Tanya sent in waiting on ice in the lab,” Billy said. “Between examining that and the two weapons that were brought in I should have plenty to occupy my time.” He turned to Rocky and Aisha. “One of you should probably go prep the Zord Hangar for when the others get back. The other should be monitoring our scanners to make sure these things don’t attack the planet again.”

“And keep an eye on where our families are, too,” Rocky added. “I’ll do that.”

“I can get the Hangar ready,” Aisha said. “Shouldn’t take long.”

“Cool,” Billy said. “Come find me in the lab when you’re done. You and Tanya can help me out with those weapons while I do my examination of the dead alien.”

“What can I do?” Rick asked them. None of them answered for a moment so he got up off the bed and walked toward them, thrusting his hands into his pockets. “Come on, kids, I know I’m new to this whole thing and you don’t want the old guy getting in your way but you need all the help you can get. There has to be something. What can I do?”

Trini finally nodded to him. “I guess having a cop’s observation skills would come in handy if I’m trying to find information on this thing. You don’t get a headache from reading a monitor too long, do you? It’s all my dad ever complains about.”

Rick chuckled for a moment. “Well, no offense to Archie, but I’m more than used to staring at a screen for hours at a time reviewing case files. I’ll be fine.”

“All right, then,” Rocky said. “Ready, break!”

The group slowly filed out of the room; as they passed the closed door to the Main Chamber, a few of them, Rick and Trini especially, stopped to see if they could hear anything from the other side. Aisha watched as the two of them shook their heads at each other. She sighed. That was apparently just one more thing that would, for now at least, remain a mystery.


	14. This Is Letting Go

**“…you bid the dead farewell. You grieve. Then you continue with your life. And at times the fact of their absence will hit you like a blow to the chest, and you will weep. But this will happen less and less as time goes on. They are dead. You are alive. So live.”  
** **-Neil Gaiman**

**“All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on.”  
** **-Havelock Ellis**

**Command Center  
** **Main Chamber  
** **11:30 PM PDT**

The sound of the door leading to the corridor out of the Main Chamber swinging shut behind Billy echoed through the cavernous room; Jason found himself shivering slightly, the room’s emptiness and his own grief sending a chill up his spine. He balled his fists gently and scuffed a shoe against the floor, his toe bouncing off the inside of the forcefield that held him with a mild shock.

“Alpha.” Zordon’s voice rumbled through the room, the sound not unlike the distant rolling of thunder. Jason squeezed his eyes shut at his tone, a velvet glove wrapped over a set of brass knuckles. He forced his knees to remain steady, tried to focus on his breathing so he wouldn’t hyperventilate. “Please disable the forcefield and leave Jason and me alone for a moment.”

“Of course, Zordon,” Alpha said quietly, clanking his way as softly as he was able to another console and flipping a switch. The forcefield immediately dissipated, and Jason had to fight back the violent urge to turn on his heel and sprint for the door.

_It’s probably locked anyway_ , he told himself, somehow growing hot with anger even at the words in his own head. Alpha moved toward the door to the Zord hangar; Jason kept his eyes shut and his head angled to the floor until he heard the door open and close behind him and then the series of metallic clicks that indicated the door had been locked.

The moment the room fell quiet again, his hands curled reflexively over his chest, fingers digging into his biceps. He took a long, shaky breath and blew it out through his nose as steadily as he could, trying to empty his lungs in as close to eight seconds as possible.

“Jason.”

Zordon’s voice had taken on a level of sadness that he wasn’t sure he’d ever detected before, not even when he’d found out Zack had died. He slowly opened his gradually moistening eyes, blinking away the tears that threatened to pour out. He was still facing toward the floor, intently examining the pattern of scuff marks and fading bloodstains in the smooth concrete.

“Jason, look at me.” The voice was still soft, kind, almost fatherly, but he heard some of that familiar commanding firmness slide in behind it. He braced himself on the balls of his feet, hugged his arms tighter against himself and lifted his head, which suddenly felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, to make eye contact with Zordon.

At the look he got from the floating, shimmering visage, it was all he could do not to break down crying all over again. His mentor wore a small, sad smile, his features displaying none of the anger, disappointment or contempt that Jason had been expecting. It took him so by surprise that he felt his heart knot behind his ribs, a flare of heat rising up into his neck.

“Zordon, I…” he started to say something, but his voice wavered and his breath hitched and he cut himself off before he could dig the hole any deeper, running a hand over his face and clearing his throat loudly to steady himself. Zordon didn’t say anything, just let him flounder for a moment. It suddenly struck him as darkly funny, and he laughed bitterly as he let his arm fall back to his side. When he spoke again, it was through a sad smile of his own. “I fucked up pretty bad here, didn’t I?”

Zordon didn’t snap at him, didn’t even chide him gently for his language like he’d always done when Jason had been around full time. He wondered if maybe having Rocky and Aisha traipsing around the Command Center nearly every day had made such warnings feel downright Sisyphean; or maybe Zordon had actually begun to unclench a little. If he was honest, Jason hoped it was the latter.

The Red Ranger reached down to the small of his back, his fingers curling protectively around the comforting shape of his morpher. “I’d prefer if you didn’t ask me to hand this over, but…” he shrugged and licked his lips. “I’m prepared to do it, if it comes to that.”

It was Zordon’s turn to let out a low laugh, something else Jason hadn’t seen him do nearly often enough. It sounded more like something vibrating deep down in whatever organ or machine or alien spell Zordon used to speak through; Jason thought he could feel the floor vibrating under his feet. “That will not be necessary, Jason,” Zordon said softly, and goddamn if the way he looked at him when he said it, the amount of love and grief and sorrow in that flickering hologram of a face, didn’t curl another knot of guilt around Jason’s heart. Zordon looked like there was more he wanted to add to that, but instead he just said, “If you would please sit down with your back against the console there and face me.” He waited expectantly.

Jason let go of his morpher, deflating a little with relief, and flexed his fingers. “No problem, Zordon,” he croaked, moving to sit as he was asked. He pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his hands on them, one forearm on top of the other. His heels rested on the floor in front of him; he leaned his shoulders back gently against the cool metal of the console behind him, the same one Billy had been using just a few minutes ago.

Zordon seemed to examine his face for a moment; Jason wasn’t sure what exactly he was looking for, but he pulled his back straighter and met his gaze with as much calm determination as he could muster. Finally, Zordon made a sound that reminded him vaguely of a human sighing.

“I would like to try something, Jason, that I’ve never tried with any of you before,” Zordon said, seeming to choose his words very deliberately. “But I will not do so without your verbal consent.” He let the silence hang in the air for a moment. Jason’s heart rate started to accelerate despite himself. Then the old Eltarian asked him something he would never have expected to hear in a billion years.

“Do you trust me?”

Jason didn’t hesitate.

“Of course I do, Zordon. With my life. You know that.”

Zordon’s visage distorted briefly, angling away from him in a way that almost looked like nodding, and he gave him that heart-wrenching look of love and sorrow again. “I know, son. I know.” This part was said so softly that he wasn’t sure he caught the words right; he’d never heard Zordon address him or any of the others by anything other than their given names or color designations. The use of a term of endearment like that was enough to make his breath catch in his throat again, a lump starting to grow in his chest and tears blurring his vision. He was so focused on trying to stay calm that he almost missed Zordon say, “I’d like you to lean your head back and find a spot on the wall around my energy tube to focus on.”

Jason shifted a little, resting his weight on his tailbone, and let his head rest against the console behind him. He found a panel of small, blinking LED lights on a piece of the wall to Zordon’s right, at approximately the floating head’s eye level, and nodded. “OK,” he said, barely managing anything more than a whisper. Zordon hummed his acknowledgement.

“Keep your eyes on that spot and just listen to my voice,” Zordon said quietly, his voice a low rumble through the room that reminded him of the feeling of riding in the backseat of his dad’s car down a long, smooth road on a clear night. “I’d like you to pay attention to your breathing. Each time you inhale, fill your lungs as much as you possibly can; each time you exhale, let them empty until not a single air molecule is left inside.” Jason took a long, slow, deep breath in through his nose, pulling air in until he was certain he had no more room left to pull, and then let it out as slowly as he could, emptying his chest until there was nothing else to force out. Zordon made a sound of approval. “Good. Now, each time you exhale, I want you to let your eyes close; and each time you inhale, let them open again.”

Jason recognized these first few instructions from some of the guided meditations he, Tommy, Adam and Rocky would sometimes do before and after intense sparring sessions, so this part was easy to follow along with. As he expected, Zordon eventually had him allow his eyes to stay closed, and then walked him through gradually relaxing every muscle in his body, from the soles of his feet up through his legs, hips, stomach, chest, back, shoulders, arms, hands, neck and finally his head. He then asked Jason to try and let his mind clear of any conscious thought, to let himself drift and relax, like Jason had done a thousand times on his own, but this time something kept nagging at him – Zordon had said this was something he had never tried before, and he couldn’t escape his own curiosity about where this would diverge from his past experience.

Zordon didn’t make him wait for long. His voice seemed to form a cocoon around him, gently vibrating against his muscles like a cat’s purr, like the way Trini would sometimes hum with contentment as they slept curled against each other. “I’d like for you to imagine that you’re standing at the top of a small staircase. At the bottom, you can see your Power Coin, floating in the air. Nothing else is around you, nothing else is important right now.”

Jason brought the image before his mind’s eye as clearly as he could, feeling a small sensation of warmth at the small of his back as an enlarged version of his Tyrannosaurus Power Coin shimmered into view at the bottom of a flight of stairs covered in white carpet. There was a dull ache in his chest when he realized that these were the stairs from his home in Angel Grove, but his concentration and Zordon’s soothing voice acted as a buffer for the most painful parts of it.

“Once you can see your coin,” Zordon continued, “Say the word ‘yes’ out loud.”

“Yes,” Jason said immediately, his voice low and husky. Zordon made that small sound of approval again, and Jason felt his entire chest flood with such intense pride he almost teared up again.

“Good, Jason,” Zordon said affectionately, and he felt like the Grinch when his heart grew three sizes. “Now, I would like you to do me a favor and take this nice and slow. You aren’t in any hurry, your friends will all be all right while you’re here; please do your best to take your time.”

Jason smiled a little, and with a sense of detached amusement saw a few witty comebacks pass hazily by him in the distance, like he was seeing them through a piece of wax paper. If Zordon noticed, he didn’t say so, just kept talking in that low, calming tone that was both brand new and agonizingly familiar all at once.

“Now, one at a time, you’re going to take those stairs down toward your coin. I want you to take another deep, calming breath in and out with each step, and count them out loud as you move down, going backwards from ten. With each number you say out loud, concentrate on deepening the relaxation in your mind and body. You’ll find as your body and mind relax deeper, the connection between you and the coin will grow stronger and stronger, until you can reach out in your mind and touch it. Do you understand?”

Jason managed to move enough to nod, moaning a little as he did so. There was a moment of serene silence before Zordon said, “Very well. Begin.”

He breathed in, deeper than he thought possible, and out again, straining his diaphragm to the absolute limit. In his mind, his foot moved down one step.

“Ten.” The coin seemed to glisten from some unknown light source, as though a spotlight was shining on it from somewhere over his shoulder.

One more breath, one more step.

“Nine.” His hands suddenly felt uncomfortably heavy; he let his arms slip down off his knees to settle in his lap, and the weight seemed to just fall away.

On eight, the glow around the coin began to turn a shade of deep, fiery red, flaring out from its edges like the corona from a solar eclipse.

“Seven. Six.”

By five, the red glow had increased in intensity until it was nearly blinding; the coin now looked like it was actually on fire, the red glow lapping at the soft, fuzzy darkness around the coin. On four, a filter seemed to sweep across his vision, and suddenly the glow from the coin was perfectly tolerable and yet still somehow just as bright all at once.

On three, he started feeling heat emanating from the coin, or possibly from the red energy pulsating from the edges of it; Jason couldn’t quite decide which.

On two, he reached out for the coin. It seemed so close that he thought his hand would go through it, but he came up centimeters short, the heat he felt on his face and arm here now echoed by the warmth from his morpher on the small of his back.

Finally, on one, he stepped to the bottom and reached out for the coin again. This time, beyond the notice of his conscious mind, his right hand lifted into the air in the Main Chamber and stretched out in front of him toward some invisible object. Inside his mind, though, his fingers found the coin, and he felt the cool metal, ran his palm over the raised image of the dinosaur he’d become so attached to, so in tune with, over the last four years. The coin was reassuring, welcoming; the coin was strength, purpose, the shield with which he would guard the world.

The coin was home.

Jason leaned into the coin a little harder, a little more needing. Then the coin swung open like a massive door, his entire field of vision was engulfed in a brilliant white light, and he stumbled forward, squeezing his eyes shut against the intense brightness.

Only seconds later, the glow faded. When he opened his eyes, he was somewhere else.

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Trini Kwan’s Private Quarters  
** **11:45 PM PDT**

Trini adjusted the weight of the huge book in her arms, hefting it with her thigh to maintain her grip as Mr. Scott worked the door to her room open. He leaned a shoulder against the door to hold it open for her as she slid past behind him and carried the thing into her room, depositing it on the island in the middle of her small kitchen, the only place besides the floor with room to hold it.

“OK, let’s see what we’ve got here,” she said breathlessly. Rick swung the door shut and strode across the room toward her, his face etched with concern.

“So the floating head guy in there – what was his name again?”

“Zordon,” she supplied, running a hand absently over the rough, scaly leather that bound the book.

“Right, Zordon,” he repeated, his mouth working around the name in a way that looked to her like he’d just tasted something bitter. “What does this Zordon guy usually do when one of you gets in trouble?”

She glanced up at him, raising an amused eyebrow. “He’s not gonna turn your son into a frog or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

He folded his arms and sighed, clearly frustrated. “Trini, I’m serious. My world has gotten a lot bigger in the last few hours and I need to make sure my son isn’t in any danger in there.” She pushed away from the book and stood up straighter.

“Papa Scott, listen, I know some of this seems completely ridiculous, but I promise you, Zordon has never had anything but our best interests at heart. Jason’s as safe in there with him as anywhere he could possibly be right now.” She paused and smirked. “Besides, we all know Jason’s his favorite.”

He just stared at her. “I realize that’s supposed to be comforting but honestly it’s mostly just creepy,” he said. “And if that guy had all of your best interests at heart he wouldn’t have forced all of this on you kids in the first place.”

“That part you’ll have to take up with him,” Trini said, her features flashing a dark expression the same way Jason’s had earlier. “But the fact is we would all probably be dead right now if it wasn’t for him. If you don’t trust him, I don’t blame you, neither did I at first, but you know me. I love Jason almost as much as you do. If I thought he was in any danger from Zordon there isn’t a door in the world heavy enough to keep me out.”

He finally cracked a small smile. “I believe it,” he said softly. He took a long, deep breath and rubbed the back of his neck, looking so much like Jason it made her heart hurt a little. “All right then, I guess there isn’t much I can do about that part anyway. What do we do with this?” He gestured to the book, throwing his game face on just as abruptly as Jason could.

She smiled. “My god, Jason is so much like you it verges on frightening.” She thought she saw him redden a little around the ears and quickly turned back to the book before things got awkward. “Anyway, let’s get this thing scanned in.” Trini swung the book open and spoke louder into the room. “Computer, initiate scan.” She stepped back as a scanner emerged from a panel in her ceiling and a series of lights played over the surface of the open book. After a moment, an image of the page she’d just scanned appeared on the large screen that took up the opposite wall.

“Wow,” Rick said, arching his eyebrows. “We sure could’ve used one of those at the precinct.” He stared at the image, trying to wrap his head around the strange writing that looked like nothing he’d ever seen before. “Though I doubt any of our techs would have a clue what to do about this.”

Trini glanced from the book to the image on the screen. “Honestly, I’m not sure what to do about it either. I’ve never seen writing like this.” She leaned back against the counter and tried something. “Computer, cross-check this writing with every known language in the Command Center database.”

“Analyzing,” the computerized voice replied; a small progress bar appeared the bottom of the screen as the search ran.

Rick stepped a little closer and reached out to touch the book’s cover, gingerly, as though afraid it might burn his hand. When it didn’t, he rubbed the thick material together between his fingers. “This feels like some kind of leather; I’m guessing from the skin of some animal from another planet.” He looked up at Trini. “If we took a sample of this, do you have anything here that could see where it comes from? That might give you a place to start.”

She nodded. “That’s a good idea.” She reached into a drawer for a knife and cut away a small piece from the corner of the cover before turning her attention to the page itself. “I’ll take a sample of the paper, too. Just in case.”

He watched as she cut away a small piece of the first page without any writing on it and was suddenly struck with inspiration. “It might be worth trying to test what the ink is made out of,” he suggested. “We’ve cracked a couple of cold cases based on the ink used on old letters.”

She hesitated. “It’ll be harder to decode this if we start cutting pieces out of it.”

“Well you already have this page scanned into the computer and it looks like it’s blank on the other side,” he said, flipping the page over to verify. The other side appeared to function as a cover page, with no writing on it where it would lay against the binding. Trini moved in with the knife again, cutting away a piece with what looked like a single word written on it.

“All right,” she said, gathering the pieces into her hands. “Once the computer is done identifying the language we can take these to the lab.”

“Anything we can do in the meantime?” He asked, shifting his weight anxiously from one foot to the other. She looked back down at the book.

“Well, I never really got to take a very good look at what all is in here,” she said, almost to herself. She glanced up at the screen; the progress bar had only reached 12 percent.

He seemed to see what she had in mind. “Well, looks like we have a minute. Wanna see if this thing has any pictures?”

She chuckled. “I’m gonna be really pissed if this just ends up being instructions for some alien IKEA furniture or some shit.” He grinned, moving closer to get a better look at the pages. Trini started slowly combing through them, examining each one for anything that looked familiar or resembled some sort of pattern.

“Hmm,” Rick grunted after ten or twelve pages. “You recognize anything?”

She shook her head, frustrated. “No. I’ve learned how to decipher a couple of alien languages before, but…this is brand new. I have no frame of reference for this; anything we might think of to look for – numbers, names, syntax – none of that is gonna be any more recognizable. This might not even be a species that communicates verbally. Unless they put in a map or some pictures of something, we’re gonna have to wait for the computer to tell us what the language is.”

Rick sighed. “You know, I kinda hoped I was gonna be more useful than this.” She looked up at him, smiling sheepishly. “You all were just humoring me, weren’t you?”

“Kinda, yeah,” she said with the faintest hint of a wince. “Sorry; I just figured if you were anything like Jason you’d go nuts if we asked you to just sit around. Looks like I was more right about that than I thought.” Trini nodded toward his head wound. He rubbed at it absently.

“I’m fine, really,” he said. “I’ve had worse raising three boys, trust me.”

She laughed quietly, continuing to flip through the pages, being met with nothing but more and more of the bizarre alien writing. Eventually, they reached the last page, which was just filled with the same indecipherable writing as the others.

“Damn it,” she muttered, swinging the thing back shut. She tapped the front cover of the book with a finger. “Well, worse comes to worst, if the language search doesn’t get us anything we can at least run a search on this symbol.” She frowned at it, turning the book every direction she could think of to see if anything struck her as familiar.

“You think the symbol is significant?” He asked, scratching at his hip as though unsure what to do with his hands. She shrugged.

“It’s the exact same symbol that they dug into the surface of the moon,” she said. “Has to be _something_ significant.”

He turned back to the screen; the progress bar was only just now reaching 30 percent. “This thing usually take this long?”

“I mean it’s basically looking through every language in the known universe, so…might take a while.”

“All right, well…” he trailed off, struggling to finish his thought. “Is there something else we can do while we wait? Or do we have to be here while it searches?”

“No, hang on.” Trini leaned forward onto the book and spoke out loud again. “Computer, send notification of completed search to communicator Yellow 3.”

“Confirmed,” the robotic voice came back. Trini turned to Rick.

“It’ll let me know when it’s done. You have something in particular in mind?”

His hand went to his waistband near his right hip and grabbed at the empty space, as though he expected to find something there. He sighed and ran his other hand over his face. “Do you kids have access to any weapons that don’t run on space magic? I feel kinda naked without a gun on my hip.”

“If I say yes, are you gonna grumble at me some more about how we’re all too young for this?”

“No, I’ll just think it to myself,” he said dryly. Trini rolled her eyes.

“I’ll take it, I guess. Come on, I’ll show you the armory.” She didn’t give him a chance to reply, making a beeline for the door and swinging it open. He followed her after a moment, glancing back at the screen one more time before he exited the room, and Trini led him down the hallway, winding her way through corridors with practiced efficiency.

“We’ll have to go the back way,” she said casually. “Usually we’d cut through the Main Chamber but your _son_ …” she said the word with exaggerated annoyance, “has monopolized it for the moment. Shouldn’t be too much further.”

They reached the armory without running into anyone else. She motioned him inside and he stopped in the doorway, whistling appreciatively at what he saw.

“Damn, you little shits have _everything_ ,” he muttered good-naturedly. She smiled and nudged his back, pushing him over the threshold. Once inside, though, he moved with an almost fluid precision, clearly knowing exactly what he was looking for. He strapped on a layer of body armor over his shirt, fastened a holster onto his belt, and then a smaller one over his thigh. He scanned a wall of firearms for a moment before selecting a sturdy black handgun, loading it, and shoving it into the holster at his side; he tugged down two spare magazines and slid them into his front pocket. Then he stepped back to a small table and picked up a six-inch knife, which he slid into the thigh strap.

“That’s better,” he said, his voice flushed with relief, as though he’d just had a severed limb reattached. “Now I don’t feel quite so…exposed.”

She nodded, breaking into a grin again from where she leaned against the doorway. “Good. I haven’t heard back from the computer yet, so we may as well go see how Billy’s doing in the lab.”

He nodded, seemed to suddenly realize something and paled a little. “He still have the body in there?”

“Yeah,” she said somberly, lowering her gaze to the floor. “He says it’s as prepped for burial as he could make it, he, uh…” she swallowed hard, her mouth suddenly going dry. When she lifted her head again, her eyes had begun to well up again. “Zack was in really bad shape, from what they told me. Billy was actually worried his parents wouldn’t recognize him. I was unconscious when he died so I didn’t…I couldn’t…” she drew in a slow, shaky breath. “ _Fuck_.”

Rick closed the space between them in two steps and squatted slightly to bring himself to eye level with her. “Trini,” he said softly, cupping the side of her neck with the same paternal protectiveness she’d seen him display for Jason. “Look at me, darlin’.”

She vaguely remembered something about him having grown up in Texas, and how, every once in a great while, a small piece of a forgotten drawl would creep back into his voice again. Trini lifted her head to meet his gaze, blinking away tears and fighting to keep her breathing even. 

“Now you listen, and listen good,” he said, his voice soft and raw and deep. “I’ve been in the Corps and I’ve been on the force, and I’ve lost people in both.” He paused, lowering himself onto one knee for the sake of his quads. “I’ve been where you are right now, and I know how guilty and useless and _futile_ it makes a person feel, like there’s a hole opening up inside you to suck everything out until the pain is all that’s left.” She sniffled, the pain on her face so familiar that his heart broke for her all over again. “And to some extent, that doesn’t ever go away. But you kids are some of the strongest people I’ve ever met, and you’re doing an extraordinary thing here.” The pride had begun to seep into his voice, drawing a small smile out of her. “I don’t know all the details about what happened but I know this much: if Zack was one of you, he was a hero. All of you are.” His hand slid down from her neck to squeeze her shoulder. “Now I don’t know how helpful this is right now but I want you to know that it _meant_ something. Remember that, OK? Because as much as I wish it was going to get easier for you all from here, I know that’s most likely not the case.” She nodded, smiling sadly. “Atta girl. The others out there may not admit it, but I’ve known you your whole life and I can see it: they _need_ you. My son needs you. So as much as I hate to do it, I have to ask you to be strong for them. Can you do that?”

She stared at him for a moment before laughing and wiping her face with one hand. “Now I see where Jason gets it from,” she said, throwing her arms around him. “Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it, sweetheart,” he said, wrapping an arm around her. Trini pulled away after a moment and blew a breath into her hands.

“We should get to the lab before Billy saves the world without us.” He just nodded and let her lead him out of the armory and back down the hallway, their footsteps echoing off the steel and concrete walls.

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Main Laboratory  
** **11:55 PM PDT**

Billy and Tanya barely looked up when they stepped into the lab, pausing in confusion at Billy’s rearrangement of the equipment. The two of them were in the process of wheeling a gurney out into the cleared out space in the middle of the lab; the gurney held the alien corpse Tanya had teleported back from the moon. As he busied himself with sliding into scrubs, a heavy white apron and a pair of elbow-length rubber gloves, Billy spoke to Trini without looking at her.

“You didn’t take long, Tri. Wasn’t expecting you for at least another few minutes. Couldn’t find anything in the book?”

“We won’t know until the computer can tell us what language it is, Billy,” Trini replied, edging toward the gurney herself. Rick took a position by the door, standing loosely at ease, shoulders bouncing him back and forth off the wall behind him, scanning the unfamiliar room for anything that might zap him if he reached for it. “I’ve got it running a sample through the database but that’s basically every language in the known universe to compare it to so it might take a hot second.”

Billy offered her a quick, sardonic smile before reaching a hand out to Tanya. “Scalpel?” Tanya grabbed a tool off the small tray they’d set up between them and handed it to Billy; as he took it, she turned and addressed Trini over her shoulder.

“You wanna do this instead? I can step aside, if you want,” she offered awkwardly, gesturing at the body on the table. Trini waved her off.

“No no, you’re plenty capable of assisting on this yourself, Tan,” she said in a tone she hoped was reassuring. Tanya nodded, gave her a look that might have been grateful and turned back to the body. The blue skin stood out sharply against the bright white of the sheet covering the table, the wound left by the blaster bolt Tanya had killed it with oozing the thick, syrupy blood over the edge of the table and onto the floor.

“Now Billy,” Rick said from the door. “I’m told by a few of the young ladies here that you’re…” he motioned vaguely to bring a word to his head. “…fairly comfortable with this sort of work, but…” he pointed to the steady trickle of blood. “I think we all know cause of death. Something tells me you didn’t bring this thing back here just for an autopsy.”

“You’re correct, Mr. Scott,” Billy said through his surgical mask. “I’m much more interested in identifying this species. None of us have ever seen anything like this before.” He finished making a deep, Y-shaped incision in the alien’s torso and handed the scalpel back to Tanya. “Mask up, please,” he said softly, and Tanya pulled her own surgical mask up over her nose and mouth. Louder, to the room, he said, “Also, I would love to be able to refer to them by something other than the assorted four-letter words with ‘blue’ tacked onto them that Rocky keeps using.”

Billy curled his fingers around the skin of the alien’s chest and began peeling it back, exposing the ribcage underneath; Tanya helped him pull open the stomach cavity, their gloves growing sticky from the viscosity of the blood. As he peeled his fingers off the inside of the flesh, Billy surveyed the inside of the alien’s body and frowned. “Hmm. That’s interesting.”

“What is?” Rick asked from the door. Tanya turned to face him.

“You can come over and look for yourself, Papa Scott,” she offered, motioning to the body. “You’re not in the way.”

“Too many cooks already,” he said, nodding to where Trini was pulling on her own set of scrubs. “I already promised I wasn’t going to step on anyone’s toes; I just want to be kept in the loop.” Billy leaned forward on the table and looked up at him.

“Certainly,” he said, a little too calmly. Rick arched his eyebrows but didn’t say anything. “Upon initial examination, it appears that this alien has identical internal organs, in roughly an identical layout, to a human, except for the change in color and consistency of the blood.” He used an eyedropper to take a sample of the blood and swabbed the inside of the proboscis that seemed to act as the creature’s mouth. “I was under the impression that Zordon had compiled an exhaustive database of every sentient species within range of our galactic sensors but this creature doesn’t correspond to any of them.”

Rick narrowed his eyes at him. “You’ve checked that already? I thought the computer searches took a while.”

Billy shook his head and then pointed at his temple. “I memorized it last year,” he said casually, moving back to his tests. Rick laughed.

“Sure. OK. Of course you did.” He hadn’t meant for it to come out so loud; he winced as his voice echoed around the room.

Billy didn’t seem to notice. He stepped across the room and slid the blood and cheek samples into a silver machine braced against the back wall. He slid them into a small drawer, closed it, and pulled off one glove. Rick watched, fascinated, as his fingers darted nimbly across the screen on the front. “That your DNA machine?” He asked. Billy turned and nodded in response. “We used to send evidence off to our crime lab for that sort of test; it usually took between 48 and 96 hours. I kinda hate to ask, but how long does this one take to get a result?”

“Depends on sample size and quality,” Billy said as though it was the most normal thing in the world to be talking about. “With the original source right here and samples this big…” he bit the inside of his cheek and his eyes rolled up toward the ceiling, like he was in deep thought. “I wanna say…five minutes, give or take?”

Rick blew an angry puff of air out through his nose. “Christ alive, you fucking kids got all the good stuff,” he muttered. Billy bit back a laugh. “Don’t you laugh at me, Cranston,” he said, his voice low and warning.

“Wouldn’t think of it,” Billy said immediately, eyes glinting. “That’s the Morphin’ Grid for you. Some of the things we’ve been able to do with that energy has been very, _very_ exciting.”

“I’ll say,” Trini said, slowly circling the table, scouring every inch of the corpse with her almond-shaped eyes. She picked up one of the alien’s humanoid hands and turned it over in her grip. “It even got you out of those big-ass glasses, Billy.”

“I was under the impression you found those glasses… I believe the word you used was ‘distinguished.’”

“Distinguished is just another word for ‘old,’ Billy,” Tanya said, eyes sparkling from the smile hidden under her mask. “Besides, what did the count eventually get up to for how many times they got broken in battle?”

“I think we’d just hit 40 when I left for Switzerland,” Trini said, meeting her eye and grinning. Billy sighed.

“He got at least another ten between the time I got here and finally realizing he didn’t need the things anymore,” Tanya said, running her fingers over the bony spike that protruded from the alien’s tentacle arm.

Rick cleared his throat and Trini met his eye. He held up his right hand, fingers splayed, and tapped his index fingertip with his other hand. Trini frowned, confused. He put his other hand out flat and rolled the tip of his finger over it like he was pressing down on something. That was when Trini seemed to understand. She stepped away from the table.

“Billy, where’d you put the fingerprint scanner?”

Without even looking up, Billy pointed across the room. “Should be on the pegboard over where the electron microscope usually is.”

Trini seemed to know exactly what that meant; she strode quickly across the lab and grabbed a tool off the wall that vaguely resembled a graphing calculator with a bigger screen. She brought it over to the alien and laid its index finger on the screen.

“Hey Tri,” Tanya said skeptically. “Not for nothing, but what are we hoping to learn from this? It’s not like this thing is gonna show up in a missing persons report.”

Trini was pressing the fingertip against the screen, rolling it smoothly from side to side; the screen lit up with a sharp green light that reminded Rick of the text on an old computer. “I’m just looking at every possibility, Tan,” she said. “This thing has arms that look like a human’s, and it looks like they have fingerprints, too. If that pulls up anything at all in our database, it’ll at least be more than what we have right now.”

There was a soft _ding_ from the other side of the room, and Rick’s head pivoted to see Billy step back up to the machine, fingers flying across the small screen once more. He paused, hand ready at one side of the screen like he meant to swipe it over to another screen, and suddenly froze, a small sound of bewilderment escaping his mouth

“What-“ was all he said before his voice abruptly cut out. Billy dug the heel of his hand into his eyes, shook his head slightly, and leaned in closer to the screen, running a finger over the surface as though to guide his reading. “This can’t possibly be –“ he stepped back, eyes darting over every corner of the machine. He stepped around it and examined the back, hands fumbling over every surface and panel and switch and input port, letting each cable fall back into place with gradually more forceful grunts of confusion and frustration. He slid open the port he’d put the samples into, pulled them out and held each one up to the harsh fluorescent lights that hummed in the ceiling, turning each one every possible direction and squinting fixedly into each container as though hoping desperately to find something.

“Something wrong, Billy?” Rick asked, voice as calm as ever despite his quickening heart rate. The blue-clad boy suddenly seemed to realize he wasn’t alone in the room, casting nervous glances at each of them before turning back to the samples and huffing bitterly.

“There has to be some kind of mistake,” he said, almost to himself. He spun around and stared at the body as though he could see through it. “Tanya, you saw me take these samples, right?” She nodded, brow furrowing. “Did I touch anything with the swab? Did something get dropped into the blood? We were both wearing gloves and everything, right?”

She frowned at him, bewildered. “You did everything right, just like always, Billy. Why? What did the test say?”

Billy didn’t answer her, turning instead to Trini as though his brain had already moved on to something else. “Tri, in the entire time we’ve been…” his face was frantic, thoughts moving with such a frenzy that his mouth could barely keep up, and so he just wordlessly flailed an arm at the room around them and Trini nodded with a look of growing unease. “Has this machine ever been wrong? Have we ever once had it come back with a bad result?” He spoke so fast that there was barely time for inflection on the words, but his eyes were pleading for her to answer a certain way and Rick couldn’t tell what he wanted her to say and the thought was _horrifying_ –

(“ _Billy built more than half the tools in that lab himself and he’s probably the smartest human left alive.”)_

– and once again, as seemed to have happened a thousand times in just the last few hours, he’s reminded that these are fucking _children_ , children he knew, people he’d watched grow up and find themselves and lie to the entire world about the most important thing any group of humans had ever done; and Billy was supposed to be the one who had all the answers and he looked fucking _lost_ in a way that filled his mouth with cotton. And in the moment between Billy’s question and Trini’s tentative answer, his hands tightened around each other where they rested against his back and steel poured into his spine and he vowed to himself that these kids would not be alone in this anymore, that he would do, say or give _anything_ he thought they needed until their job here was done, and then he’d pull that floating face out of that stupid goddamn tube and put a steel-toed boot into his balls.

The thought actually came close to making him chuckle; he had to swallow it down like too big a bite of food, so painful and jagged he was sure he made a face at it, but none of them saw it; they were too busy doing a job that none of them should’ve been asked to do.

“Billy, that machine has never been wrong about anything before,” Trini said, speaking slower than usual on purpose, probably to try and slow him down. “If we didn’t contaminate the samples I see no reason why you shouldn’t trust your results. Why? What’d it say?”

Billy actually started to answer her this time before Trini got a _ding_ of her own. She glanced down at the device she was holding and got the same confused look on her face that Billy just had and Rick’s stomach knotted with anxiety again.

“What the fuck-“ she started, cutting herself off abruptly and looking back up to meet Billy’s eye again, her face now the one that moved through a hundred questions in under a second before settling on something. “Speaking of weird results.”

Billy waited for a second, but she didn’t continue so he spoke up. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

Trini glanced darkly between him and Tanya, as though unsure if he was serious. Finally she swiped across the screen in her hand in a rough, almost angry motion, and a screen that took up most of the wall behind Billy lit up with some kind of readout from her display and something about it was so familiar to him, why did it look –

_Oh, Christ._

The readout on the screen was an AFIS entry for a man named Patrick Villanueva, aged 35, height 5’11”, weight 190 pounds, arrested and charged with aggravated assault, April 22, 2009, Angel Grove, California. There was even a picture, a smiling Hispanic man with a jet-black goatee and a massive silver cross hanging from a thick chain around his neck. Trini tossed the scanner onto a nearby table and pointed at the screen.

“This thing’s fingerprints were an exact match for this guy from Angel Grove,” she said, eyes darting back and forth from the screen to the alien and back again. “Which means it would have to have found some way to replicate human fingerprints or something, right? But that’s ridiculous, what the hell purpose would that serve?”

“I mean, it sounds crazy,” Tanya said softly, “but the only other thing I can think of is even crazier.” Billy nodded grimly and ran a hand over his face.

“Maybe not as crazy as you think, Tan.” He swept his hand across the screen on his machine and the readout on the wall changed. This was one Rick was entirely unfamiliar with, but Trini seemed to understand it well enough; she actually took a step back from it, her face draining of blood. Billy stepped forward and pointed at the creature on the table. “Look at the organs. Heart, lungs, liver, stomach, kidneys, intestines, all in the right places, all the right size. Maybe not functional anymore, since it can walk around in space, but they’re all still there. It has human arms and hands, human fingerprints, hell, some of the ones we saw in Angel Grove were wearing _clothes_ , for fuck’s sake.”

He pointed at the screen behind him. “And this seals it. Trini, you were right before. I don’t ever remember this machine being wrong one time in four years. I tested this thing’s blood and cheek cells for DNA and everything else the machine would let me do, and there are a lot of weird distortions and anomalies I’ve never seen before but they all show me the same thing.” He shot another series of nervous looks around the room, breathing a little harder now, finally seeming to remember that Rick was still there. His gaze finally settled on the corpse on the table.

“Guys…” he swallowed, blinked several times, leaned both hands against the table. “This thing is human.”

* * *

**Unknown Location  
** **11:50 PM PDT**

When Jason opened his eyes again, all he could see was white. Endless, formless, featureless white stretching out around him in every direction, as though he was submerged in an ocean comprised entirely of this blazing white light. He looked down at his feet and had to fight off a swell of vertigo; he _felt_ like he was standing on solid ground, but it sure looked as though there was nothing but an endless white abyss beneath his feet, a gaping, invisible maw that opened up into nowhere.

He jerked his eyes back up to face forward, frantically scanning his surroundings for anything to break through the dizzying monotony of the light.

For a long second, there was nothing. It was an immeasurably weird feeling; he couldn’t hear any sound, couldn’t feel any moving air or temperature, couldn’t smell anything. He wondered if this was what a session in a sensory deprivation tank would be like.

Shakily, tentatively, he took a step forward, expecting at any second for his foot to tumble forward into nothing and send him falling into that infinite whiteness. It didn’t, though; it caught solid ground with an abruptness that almost made him gasp. He laughed nervously.

“OK, so not falling into a bottomless pit. Good start.” He glanced around himself in every direction and licked his lips. “Hello? Is anybody there?” He called out into the void, hearing his words echo back to him off of…something.

“Hello, Jason.”

The new voice came booming out at him from the whiteness, rumbling through his ribcage like the bass drum at a rock concert. Jason flinched at the sudden sound, nearly losing his balance as he staggered forward and whipped his head around at the same time.

A man had appeared behind him, about his height, wearing a long, sweeping, green and white cloak with a high collar; he had on a loose-fitting white shirt on underneath, fastened all the way up to his neck with leather straps of some kind, and brown pants tucked into shiny black boots that came halfway up to his knees. His face was pale, paler than any human skin Jason had ever seen, and creased with deep wrinkles around the mouth, eyes and forehead. Something about that face was intensely familiar, but in his state of disorientation, he couldn’t quite place it. The man stepped toward him and reached out a hand, as if offering a handshake.

“It is a pleasure to finally meet you in person.”

And just like that, everything clicked. The voice, the face, that _presence_ …Jason’s mouth went dry at the realization and he gaped at the man, eyes widening in shock.

“ _Zordon_?” He could barely get the word out, his voice choked with disbelief. He cleared his throat and swallowed, but never took his eyes off the man’s face.

Zordon – for that was who stood before him now, Jason realized with mounting amazement – smiled, his face crinkling even further, and offered him a small nod.

“I believe the expression is, ‘in the flesh?’” Even in spite of his shock, Jason had to bite back a laugh.

“I’m sorry, did you just make a _joke_?” He finally broke free of his reverie enough to step forward and take Zordon’s hand in his. His skin was surprisingly warm, smooth except for where he could feel wrinkles in it; his grip was firm but not hard, and he seemed content to just grasp his hand rather than actually shake it up and down.

Zordon raised an eyebrow and smiled at him again. “Perhaps I am picking up more human behaviors from you and Tommy than I was aware. If this disturbs you I can try to stop.”

Jason released his hand and let it fall back to his side. “Believe me, that is the _least_ disturbing thing that’s happened to me today.” He let his eyes wander up and down Zordon’s physical form. “Is this…are we inside your time warp or whatever? How are you here? How do you look like this? Where…?” He trailed off, gesturing vaguely at their surroundings, his train of thought running out of steam as questions threatened to burst from his throat like a waterfall.

Zordon didn’t seem to mind. “We are not inside my time warp, no. I would not subject you to that.” His voice was calm but undercut with a level of sadness that made Jason’s heart ache. “This is what I call a pocket dimension, a place created by our connections to the Morphin’ Grid; we can access it through our minds, which is why I can appear this way.” He gestured to himself. Jason motioned at Zordon’s body and clothing.

“So this is what you looked like…” he struggled for a word. “Before…?”

Zordon seemed to grasp his meaning. “Ah, yes. Before Rita trapped me in that time warp, this was my conception of what I looked like. I believe the term is ‘residual self-image.’”

Jason nodded, chuckling. “OK, Morpheus, I’ll take the red pill, please.” Zordon frowned and he rolled his eyes. “Right. Know your audience.” He looked around again. “So why does it look like this?”

“I am not sure,” Zordon said. “I wasn’t even sure we would be able to access this place; I have never tried this with any of you before.”

“Why? Is it dangerous?”

“No, nothing like that,” Zordon said soothingly, holding out a placating hand. “It just requires a very deep connection to the Grid, and I was unsure whether any of you had been Rangers for long enough to have forged a bond that strong.” He smiled proudly. “I am very impressed that you’ve come this far in such a short time.”

Jason laughed nervously. “Oh, uh…thanks,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. There was a moment of companionable silence before he spoke again. “So why am I here?” He asked, wrapping his arms around himself again. “Not gonna lie but I was expecting the Full Metal Jacket treatment.” Again, Zordon frowned in bewilderment and Jason grunted in frustration. “How the fuck have you been around this long and not even peeked at pop culture?”

He didn’t realize what he’d said until he’d said it, but again, the usual chiding for his language never came. Instead, Zordon just sighed sadly and crossed his arms, fixing Jason with a gaze that sent goosebumps down his arms and a chill into his stomach.

“Jason,” he said softly, and Jesus _Christ_ if his voice didn’t sound exactly the way his father’s had when he’d pointed to the spot where his brothers’ remains were buried. Jason took a shaky breath and rubbed one arm with his other hand.

“OK, look, if this is the part where you tell me you’re not mad, you’re just disappointed, can we just skip ahead a few tracks? I get that plenty from my dad.”

Zordon was silent again, just kept staring at him with that look of worry and sorrow and _pity_ on his face and Jason was suddenly so uncomfortable that he couldn’t keep himself from talking, just desperately trying to fill the silence with the sound of his own voice.

“And hey, while I’m asking, is it necessary for us to be doing this here? I keep getting distracted looking for an old wizard and a deformed fetus under a bench.” Now his feet started pulling him one direction after another, a flare of heat slowly rising in his chest, slowly intensifying until he was amazed he wasn’t sweating. “And I wish you’d told me about the…” he motioned vaguely at Zordon. “…dress code.” He glanced down at himself, his jersey now replaced with a red muscle shirt and cargo shorts. “I can’t help but feel a little underdressed.”

“Jason,” Zordon said again, a little louder this time, but still not moving from where he stood. The heat in Jason’s chest had risen into the back of his neck now, and he glared at Zordon and took two forceful steps back toward him, jabbing a finger at him aggressively.

“And stop _looking_ at me like that, you condescending asshole. I don’t need your concern and I definitely don’t need your pity. I told you I knew I fucked up back there, and I feel bad enough about it already, so if you don’t want me to turn in my morpher then stop yanking my chain and fucking tell me what we’re _doing here_!”

“ _Jason_.” This time he didn’t just hear Zordon’s voice, he _felt_ it, the words echoing inside his head so strongly it actually made him physically flinch. He blinked at Zordon a couple of times, trying to make his tongue move, but before he could gather himself, Zordon stepped forward and put both of his hands on Jason’s shoulders. “Take a breath, son.”

There was that word again, and where the first time he’d heard it had brought with it an intense rush of pride, this time it just made him nauseous, the edges of his vision beginning to cloud with red. He shrugged Zordon’s hands off his shoulders and practically threw himself backwards, leveling his finger at him again. “Only two people get to call me that,” he growled, his other hand curling into a fist, his blood pounding in his ears. “One of them is dead and I almost just killed the other. Say it again and fucking _see_ what happens.”

His mouth seemed to operate independently from his brain at this point, words tumbling out of it faster than he could think to control them. The flare of heat had moved into his cheeks now, the red cloud encroaching further into his field of vision. Jason could feel the physical sensation of his control over his own body slipping away, like some other presence from the back of his mind was forcing its way in to take over; a jolt of fear went through him as Zordon stepped toward him again, face unchanged, hands still held out like he was still holding his shoulders. He demanded his body to be still, ordered his mouth to stop, and yet nothing seemed to work, something had come disconnected and he couldn’t put it back and _holy fucking Christ it’s happening again._

His fists came up in front of him unbidden, his body taking a defensive stance all of its own volition, that damned red cloud moving in further. “Don’t take another step, old man,” his mouth said, his voice raw and deep, the words bitter on his tongue. “Or I swear to god I’ll fucking…”

“ _Red Ranger_.” Zordon’s voice was in his head again, only this time he couldn’t see his mouth move. His confusion at this was enough to slam his body to a stop, his muscles loosening ever so slightly. The voice seemed to travel through every nerve ending in his body, slowly peeling back at the red cloud over his vision. “Look at me.” It wasn’t even words this time; Zordon seemed to reach in and send impulses through Jason’s own nervous system, wrenching his eyes up to lock onto Zordon’s. “Easy, Jason,” he said; again his mouth didn’t move, again he seemed to seep his words through Jason’s nervous system; this time he felt a soothing wave of cooling energy, like his blood was replaced with cold water. Jason let out a breath of relief and forced his fists to lower, dragging his hands down to his sides and holding them there, muscles contracting painfully as he fought just to keep his arms still.

“ _Good_ ,” Zordon said this time. Tears sprung to Jason’s eyes, the sneer falling off his face; he forced his way through another barrier and spoke of his own accord.

“Help,” was all he managed. It came out choked, strained, his voice ragged from being yanked free of his throat by force. Zordon’s face softened immediately. He moved forward quickly and cupped Jason’s face with both hands, leaning in until they were mere inches apart.

“It’s all right,” he said, and the words came from his mouth this time, his voice soothing but normal now, no longer booming into his brain but still just as comforting. “It’s all right, Jason. Just breathe through it. Focus on me and take your control back.”

They stood there like that for what felt like forever, not moving, not speaking. It was all Jason could do just to keep his breathing under control. He squeezed his eyes shut, putting all his concentration into uncurling his fists; then relaxing the muscles in his arms; and then reaching out to try to retake control of his feet, one toe at a time.

Finally, the tension in his body subsided, and he sagged with exhaustion and let Zordon catch him with a hand to his chest. He had to grab at his wrist to keep from falling to his knees, gripping it so hard his knuckles turned white. He blinked the tears out of his eyes, shaking his head to clear the last vestiges of the red cloud from his vision, and finally forced himself to look Zordon in the eye again.

The old mage just smiled kindly at him, still gripping his shoulder with his other hand. “Are you with me, Jason?”

All he could do was nod. Zordon released his hold on his shoulder and stepped back slightly, his other hand still planted on Jason’s chest.

“Well done,” he said, smile widening. Jason still didn’t trust himself to talk, so he just smiled weakly instead. “Now to answer your question,” Zordon said, “I brought you here so that we could get you through _that_ ,” and Jason heard the knowing wink in his voice, “without anybody else getting hurt.” He searched Jason’s face for a second and he felt his throat constrict, the tears forming in his eyes again.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice breaking in a way that disgusted him with how small it made him feel. “That hasn’t happened that bad since…”

“Since about ten minutes ago?” There was no malice in the question but Jason felt the hot dagger of guilt in his gut all the same. He finally released his grip on Zordon’s wrist and let that arm fall loosely back to his side.

“God, this is all my fault.” His voice was so low it was almost a whisper. “Zack, my dad, my family, everything.” His breath hitched in his throat and he took a shaky step back from Zordon, suddenly needing desperately to break the physical contact. “Fuck, they would still be here if I had just…”

“Jason, stop,” Zordon said, his voice soft but firm again. “You just demonstrated that you are perfectly capable of taking back control.” Jason met his gaze again, not bothering to stop the moisture filling up his eyes this time. “Now it is true that your anger can be dangerous. That much is clear, and a connection to the Grid as powerful and deep as yours is will only amplify that. But what’s even more powerful is your stubbornness. You’ve been showing me that for the last four years; we just need for you to see it for yourself.”

Jason sniffed and ran a hand through his hair. “This has been happening my entire life, Zordon,” he said. “It’s always kind of been a part of me; don’t think I don’t see how scared some of the others look when I really get mad. After all this time, though, I…I thought I’d figured out how to deal with it but clearly I haven’t. If you’re right and the power will only amplify it, me being on this team is a liability, especially now.” He wiped at his eyes with the back of his arm. “I’m sorry. I should’ve known better. I should’ve _been_ better. More prepared, less impulsive, stronger, faster, fucking _something_. You chose me for this team, you chose me to _lead_ this team, because you trusted me and I let you down. I let _everybody_ down.”

“You’re wrong, Jason,” Zordon said, stepping toward him again. “On two counts. First of all, I didn’t choose you.” Jason narrowed his eyes at him, confused. “I didn’t choose any of you. The coins have always chosen their wielders, for as long as there have been Rangers. The coin chose you, the _Grid_ chose you, just as the red coin chose me all those long years ago.” Jason reached back instinctively and ran his fingers over the morpher and coin at the small of his back. “And two, you haven’t let anybody down. Sometimes even the most powerful of us have things happen to us that we simply cannot control; no matter how strong we are or how much we prepare, sometimes bad things just _happen_. It isn’t because of anybody failing, there isn’t anyone to blame. It just happens, and there’s nothing to be done.”

Jason grunted bitterly. “I think Zack might disagree with you on that part.”

“I think I’ll decide what I think, if it’s all the same to you,” came a new voice from behind him. Jason whipped around, his fists coming up again on reflex. It took a moment, but his eyes widened as he saw who stood before him.

He faintly heard Zordon say, “And the other reason I brought you here is so that the two of you could talk,” but he barely registered the words in his shock at the person who stood before him, whole and strong and _alive_ , grinning that obnoxious grin that he’d already started to ache for. Jason dropped his fists and laughed with disbelief.

“ _Zack_?”

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Zord Hangar  
** **11:40 PM PDT**

“Rocky.”

Rocky jerked his head around and blinked rapidly at Aisha. She was standing at one of the control panels in the Zord hangar, fingers poised over the switches, glaring at him over one shoulder. “You’re doing it again.”

He frowned at her. “Doing what again?”

She snorted. “You’re whistling that fucking Katy Perry song again. Seriously, I hope you don’t do that around your brothers or they’d never let you hear the end of it.”

“It’d probably just get lost under the rest of their bullshit,” he muttered, resting his chin on one hand. He had dragged a couch into the Zord Hangar and was lounging in front of the surveillance terminal, to which he’d rerouted the feed from the Viewing Globe. He had been flipping nervously between different angles from their recon drones of their families in the prison camp that had encompassed much of what was left of Angel Grove. Apparently, his nerves had gotten the better of him.

He heard Aisha groan softly from behind him. “If you’re gonna be in here, can you at least _try_ to be quiet for five goddamn minutes?” She paused, and even without looking he could hear the way she cocked her head to one side and held up a finger, as though she was about to say something capital-I Important. “Or, better yet, you could help me instead of just sitting on your ass all night like you were in high school again.” She paused. “Or college.” Another pause. “Or any other night of your life, really. Huh. You know, that actually explains a lot.”

He smirked, not even bothering to turn and face her. “Sorry, Sha. This is an extremely volatile situation and anything could potentially go wrong at any time. I have to keep vigilant here as long as Zordon is preoccupied so we know if anything changes down there.”

“See, I know your lips are moving, and words are coming out, but all I hear is Jason, for some reason,” she said, sighing angrily. “Speaking of Zordon being fucking preoccupied.”

“You know, I wonder if you’d feel the same way about me if my whole family died and then I lost my cool for ten seconds,” Rocky said casually, drumming his fingers on the arm of the couch. This time, he didn’t turn all the way around, but glanced sideways at the couch so he could see if she moved into his peripheral vision.

“You and I both know that’s exactly what we signed up for here, Rock. Jason’s been a Ranger longer than either of us, not to mention the leader, he’s supposed to be…” she trailed off, but he knew where she was going well enough to finally turn around and talk to the back of her head.

“Sha, I love you but I swear to god if you say ‘better than that’ I’m gonna come over there and fucking Hadouken you across the room. That’s bullshit and you know it. Besides, if I know my Ranger history worth the price of my Command Center food budget, Tommy put the originals through a hell of a lot worse before we ever got here, and I don’t see Jason or any of the rest of them holding that over _his_ head.”

She still didn’t turn to look at him, but her fingers stopped moving over the console and she let her head fall back slightly onto her shoulders, like she was staring up at the ceiling. “That’s different.”

“How?” Rocky asked incredulously. “Because we weren’t here? Because it didn’t directly involve you?”

“You know damn well that’s not what I meant, you asshole,” she retorted, finally turning to glare at him again. “You forget, I _taught_ you that Ranger history. It’s different because Tommy didn’t have any control over what he was doing. Jason pushed and pushed and pushed to be allowed onto this mission, he was constantly forcing the issue, and he swore up and down that he was fine right up until he almost turned four of us and half the moon into sparkly little bits of space dust. That was _his_ call. That was on _him_.”

“And maybe if it had any chance of actually happening, I’d agree with you,” he said. “But Jason and Tommy put in override procedures for a reason, and Jason wasn’t even officially a part of that mission anyway, that’s why he wasn’t up there with us.” He shifted around so he was on his knees on the couch, leaning forward onto his forearms on the back cushion. “And _you_ forget, I was up there, too. I’m willing to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, and after all the time I’ve known you, I would’ve thought you would be, too. So what’s different this time?”

She leaned back, resting her butt against the control panel. “You were inside the structure at the time, Rock, so you didn’t hear what was happening over that comm channel. Tommy and Adam and I all told him how crazy he was being, and how dangerous that would be, and that four of our lives would be at risk, and he _didn’t care_. He just waved all that off like it didn’t even matter, like both of us, and a girl so new to this that she’s still jumping through hoops to please everybody, and even _his own girlfriend_ , weren’t as important as his own fucking revenge fantasy. I’ve been going back and forth about that ever since we got back, like…was that just a symptom of grief? Of him being so upset still over his mom and brothers that he just went a few steps too far? Or is it like…” she stopped and stared at a spot over his head for a moment, her eyes darting back and forth in thought like she was reading from invisible cue cards. “My grandpa used to say that a drunk man’s truths are a sober man’s lies. What if this is like that? What if this is what he’s always been underneath and the combination of Zack and his mom and his brothers and everything else brought his guard down _just enough_ that we finally got to see it? What guarantee do we have that he’s not some kind of ticking time bomb and all we’ve done is set back the clock?”

“Zordon, for one,” Rocky replied immediately, holding out a hand when she started to interrupt him. “Look, I know I don’t usually have complete faith in the guy, but Jason does. I think all the originals do. And I’ve been here long enough to know that at the very least the ten of us represent a really valuable investment on Zordon’s part. Even if he’s worse than we think he is, he’s not gonna risk losing the most powerful weapons he’s got. Besides, he’s probably in there ripping Jason a new asshole right this very second; if nothing else, it’ll get his head back on straight.” He rocked back onto his haunches and slid his feet down to stand on the floor in front of the couch. “And us, for another. Tommy, Kim and Trini all still seem to have their brains attached. There’s a reason there isn’t just one field leader on this team, and even more reasons why Kim and Trini have override power. For situations exactly like this.” He walked around the couch as he spoke, leaning against the back of it and folding his arms over his chest. “And on the very, _very_ off chance that all of that crashes and burns, you and Adam and I have had each other’s backs since before we could eat solid food. There’s always that to fall back on.”

Aisha was quiet for a long minute, just looking at him, letting what he said sink in. When she finally spoke, her voice was much quieter, no longer echoing off the metallic walls like she had before. “You know, it’s funny. A couple of hours ago I said something about Jason to Kim and she snapped at me that I barely knew him. At the time I just wrote it off as her being angry and not liking that I used him against her, but after this…I think she was right. I don’t think I really know him at all. And I don’t know if I can trust him anymore.” She met his eye again. “Do you?”

It was Rocky’s turn to let the silence linger in the room for a second before he spoke. “I think you know him better than you think you do. Just because someone does something that surprises you doesn’t mean they’re a different person than you thought they were. It’s just a new facet of that person that you’re seeing. We’ve only ever seen Jason as the OG, the guy in charge, Mr. Ultimate Warrior. Seeing him that shaken by anything would’ve been a shock to me, too, if I’d actually heard it happening. But I don’t think that’s enough for us not to trust him.” He pushed himself away from the couch and stepped toward her. “Look, all I know is, every single person on this team would’ve been dead at some point or another if it wasn’t for him. He’s put his ass on the line for us more times than I can count. And when we first got here, when I was effectively taking his place – I mean, shit, Sha, my Ranger color is just the darker and edgier reboot of his – he never showed me any resentment or jealousy or anything like that. Hell, he took me under his wing, showed me the ropes, sparred with me…I don’t mean to go all chick flick on you but in a lot of ways he’s like the big brother I never had. I’ve never once thought he had anything other than my best interests at heart.” He stopped, not moving within arm’s reach of her so she didn’t feel pinned. “And I know he’s been the same to you. You may not have interacted with him as much, but I’ve seen you two talk to each other. I think he sees some of himself in you. You may not know him like you know Kim or Adam or Kat or Billy, but you know _me_. And I think I know him.”

She studied his face for a moment. “You still didn’t answer my question.”

He sighed. “Look, I’m not asking you to just forget about it. If he hurt you that badly then you should absolutely take that up with him. But I am asking you to give him the benefit of the doubt. One bad day after four-and-some years of doing the hardest job on the planet shouldn’t rewrite someone’s entire story. So yes, I trust him. He’s a good guy and a great friend. Don’t give up on him, OK?”

Aisha looked at the floor for a second; he could see the war being waged on her face. Finally she looked back up at him and said, “Yeah, OK. Benefit of the doubt. I can do that.” He smiled and she quickly added, “I’m still gonna sock him in the jaw next time I see him.”

He laughed. “Shit, I think you’ve earned that much.” She smiled back just as a loud, grating, metallic sound reverberated through the room, so loud that both of them flinched.

“They’re here!” He shouted over the noise. “You ready for the Hart/Oliver Drama Express?”

“Always!” She yelled back, grinning. They moved to step behind the door so as not to be boiled alive by the heat of the Zord thrusters; once there was quiet again, she nudged him with her elbow. “And don’t think I missed that you told me you loved me.”

He gaped at her, mouth flailing at words he couldn’t make form, as she leaned casually against the door, arching her eyebrows at him smugly. He stood there sputtering at her until the sounds of the Zord thrusters quieted and she pushed the door open, slipping back into the hangar and leaving him there, panting, red-faced and staring at the spot where she’d just been standing.

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Zord Hangar  
** **11:55 PM PDT**

Tommy and Kim were already mid-argument as they climbed out of their Zords, both of them angrily shoving their cockpit doors open and yanking their helmets off.

“We have a chain of command for a fucking reason, Kim!” Tommy threw his helmet aside and let it bounce across the floor, foregoing the small ladder that hung from the side of the cockpit and hopping down to the ground. Kim rolled her eyes and slid down the side of her own Zord with a practiced, deliberate calm.

“And if your fucking chain of command had had its way, we wouldn’t have any information about the inside of those ships!” She tossed her helmet casually straight up into the air and demorphed before it hit the ground, letting it disappear into the empty space above her head. “If you’re angry about me outsmarting you don’t take it out on me.”

“Yeah, you were really smart, charging eyes-closed-headfirst into danger and coming _this close_ to getting yourself killed.”

“Hey there, pot. My name’s kettle. You’re black.”

He rolled his eyes and canceled his own morph. “Answer me something. Just out of curiosity. If the order to stay out had come from Jason or Zordon, would you have followed it?”

As Rocky and Aisha stood watching this, Adam and Kat walked quietly over to stand next to them, watching the two older Rangers go at it. Rocky leaned over to Adam.

“So how long has this argument been happening?”

“Which time?” Adam asked sardonically. “They’ve been going around in circles for the last twenty minutes. I had thought about setting my watch to it.”

Kat sighed and dropped her morph, glancing over at Aisha. “Sha, you all have been here longer than I have. Should we be doing something about this?”

“Why?” Aisha said, snorting with laughter. “Half the stuff on TV isn’t this entertaining.” She saw the look on Kat’s face and added quickly, “Besides, they’ll wear themselves out eventually. You’ll get used to this, trust me.”

Kat looked back at Tommy and Kim, still shouting at each other, moving steadily closer until their chests were almost touching. “Any of you ever feel like we’re just running on a giant hamster wheel?”

“Yes,” all three of them said at once. Kat chuckled despite herself and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Oh my god, we’re all gonna die,” she muttered. The other three burst out laughing, and Kim and Tommy finally seemed to realize they had an audience. Both of their faces reddened and they stormed toward them, moving for the door.

With the look of a man stepping in front of a bus, Rocky reached out and grabbed Tommy’s shoulder as he walked by.

“Hey, big man,” he said happily, as though Tommy wasn’t practically growling at him. “We got a plan for next steps here?”

Tommy looked at the hand Rocky had on his shoulder and then back to his face, his glare intensifying. “Step one, you take your fucking hand off my shoulder before I break your wrist.” Rocky slowly removed his hand, grin widening. “Step two, the four of you fuck off and let me take a shower while Jason has his Come To Jesus meeting with Zordon. Step three, I start punching people. Jason, Kim…” he looked Rocky up and down. “You.” He raised his eyebrows expectantly. “How’s that for fucking next steps?”

Rocky didn’t respond to that; instead, he peered over Tommy’s shoulder at where Kim had stopped at the door, not hiding the fact that she was listening. “Hey Kim, translate that for me. How long is the hate sex gonna last this time? I just wanna be prepared, you know, cause last time we ran out of snacks.”

The look on Kim’s face became positively _feral_. Before she could bull rush Rocky, Adam stepped up next to him and put a hand on his chest.

“Sorry about him, guys, he has a slight issue with his brain being missing,” Adam said. “But before you both rip out his heart and eat it, I should remind you that we just got home from Day 1 of the apocalypse, so anytime you wanna figure out your shit would be great.”

“Oh, I’ve figured out plenty, Adam,” Kim growled, jerking her head at Tommy. “He’s the one with his head still stuck up his ass.”

Tommy wheeled on her, fists balling. “That’s a great way to talk to someone who’s trying to keep you alive, you fucking idiot.”

“I never asked for your fucking help!” Kim practically screamed, jabbing a finger at him. “And in case you haven’t noticed, there are eight other people here and several billion out there who you could be helping instead. You don’t get to appoint yourself my fucking savior just because you suddenly decided I couldn’t take care of myself.”

“And yet you keep insisting on _proving me right_!” He retorted, laughing bitterly. “I wouldn’t have to treat you like a child if you didn’t keep sticking forks in electrical outlets and trying to drink the blue stuff under the sink.”

“I’m still here, aren’t I?”

“You’re welcome.”

“Oh fuck _off_ ,” she groaned loudly. “I’ve been a Ranger even longer than you have. I am the _last_ person here who you should worry about taking care of themselves.”

“And when the hell did we rewrite the rules here so I couldn’t just fucking care about someone?”

Tommy froze and blinked a couple times, as though he hadn’t expected to say that out loud. Kim stared back at him, mouth slightly agape, half in and half out of the door to the hangar. Aisha gently pushed Kat in front of her and strode by Adam and Rocky, tugging gently on their shirt collars as she passed.

“Come on, kids, let’s get out of here so Mommy and Daddy can talk,” she muttered softly. Adam and Rocky couldn’t entirely hide their disappointment as they followed Aisha, the four of them pushing gently past Kim and filing out the door. They practically tiptoed down the hallway, not daring to say anything until they heard the hangar door close behind them.

“’Mommy and Daddy?’” Rocky said, clearly fighting hard not to laugh. “Where the hell did that come from?”

“I don’t know, shut up,” Aisha grumbled. “And where the hell did ‘big man’ come from? You’ve got Tommy by an inch and ten pounds, easily.” He snorted and she rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I was more focused on reaching minimum safe distance before that fucking atom bomb went off in there.”

“OK, well, we’re out of blast range, Dr. Manhattan,” Adam said, smirking. “Was there an endgame to this whole thing?”

Aisha punched Adam halfheartedly on the arm. “Billy and Tanya might still be in the lab. We might as well see what they’ve got while Zordon’s busy.”

“Any ideas on the timetable on that?” Kat asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Zordon close off the Main Chamber for a private talk with someone before.”

“Neither have we,” Adam said. “This is new to us, too.”

“Hey, look at us, setting precedents,” Rocky said with exaggerated cheerfulness. They had reached the door to the lab at this point and as Adam went to open it, Rocky spoke again. “By the way, Aisha reminded me I missed Mt. Jason erupting. Where on the Jason scale are we talking here? Did we achieve full Statham?”

“Dude, I think we blew right past Statham and straight into full-on Voorhees.” The words were out of Adam’s mouth before he realized that Trini and Mr. Scott were in the lab as well, all four occupants staring up at them as they walked in. Rocky, though, was still talking.

“Wait, we had a Category Voorhees and I _missed it_? Damn it, I haven’t been this disappointed since _Terminator: Salvation_.” He stopped abruptly when Aisha elbowed him in the ribs. “Ow! What – oh, shit.”

“Hey, kids,” Rick said, face unreadable, raising a hand in a small wave. “Everything go all right on your way back?”

“If you don’t count Tommy and Kim spitting acid at each other like that thing from _Jurassic Park_ , then sure,” Adam said with a shrug. “What about here?”

Billy and Trini shared a look, but before they could answer, Aisha pointed to the screen behind them which still displayed the fingerprint record. “Who’s that? Why is his picture on that monitor?”

Billy glanced between the screen and the blue alien on the table. “That guy,” he pointed back over his shoulder at the screen. “Is this guy.” He motioned to the alien. Aisha frowned, bewildered.

“Wait, what? What are you talking about, Billy?”

“It’s true,” Trini said. “We found fingerprints on the hands that look like human hands and they came back to this guy who was arrested a few years back in Angel Grove. And the DNA test confirmed it – we tested blood, mouth scrapings or the closest thing to, and anything else we could think of, and they all came back the same.” She tapped a button and the screen changed to show the DNA test results. “Look. Barring a couple of weird anomalies and distortions, this thing is human.”

“OK, so…” Kat said slowly, her already fair cheeks growing even paler. “If this thing is human, how did it get from looking like that…” she pointed to the picture. “To looking like this?” Billy shrugged, sighing in frustration.

“We haven’t figured that out yet. We were still discussing what our next course of action here should be when you all walked in.”

“Oh, Tri,” Rocky exclaimed, suddenly remembering. “What was in that book we found? Was there anything useful there?”

“I don’t know,” Trini answered. “We ran a scan of one of the pages through the Command Center database and it isn’t any language that we have on record as existing in the known universe. We took samples of the actual paper, the ink and the cover, but those haven’t ben tested yet.” She looked over at Billy. “I can get that going if you want.”

“Excellent,” he replied, nodding. “While you’re doing that, there’s something else I wanted to look into.” He turned and strode purposefully across the lab to the table where the two weapons were still lying, untouched. He carefully hefted one and turned to face the others. “Based on what I’ve been told by the people who brought these back here, I’ve hypothesized that they operate on the same kind of energy that the big ships’ weapons use. If we can figure out how these work, we may be able to disable those weapon systems as well.” He turned the weapon over in his hand, careful not to trigger anything. “Problem is I don’t see any place on here where I could take it apart, it looks like it’s all made from one solid piece.”

“Careful with that thing, Billy,” Rick said warily, inching his way toward where the other weapon lay on the table. “I don’t see any kind of safety or trigger guard or anything on that weapon, you touch it wrong and you could lose a hand.”

Billy looked up at him as if to thank him and froze. “Mr. Scott, would it be inappropriate of me to assume that in your profession you’ve had experience with different sorts of firearms?” Rick chuckled a little, cocking his head at Billy in confusion.

“No, that isn’t inappropriate at all, Billy,” he answered, “although the fact that you talk like someone three times your age is gonna take a little getting used to again.”

“Yes, um…sorry,” Billy replied, laughing sheepishly. “Anyway, would you be so kind as to test fire this weapon for me? I would love to see how it works first hand.”

Rick hesitated, eyeing the alien weapon suspiciously, as though he expected it to shapeshift into something else. “Not in here, right?” He asked, gesturing around the lab.

Billy motioned behind him with his head. “I have a firing range in the back that can handle just about anything.” Rick swallowed and nodded.

“Sure, OK,” he finally said. He turned and addressed the other gathered Rangers in the room. “One of you want to test the other one? Who here is the best shot?”

Everyone in the room except Billy immediately raised their hand. Rick bit back a laugh, shaking his head with amusement. “I had to ask.”

Aisha snorted, grinning. “Good to see that having these powers hasn’t gone to our heads.”

“I don’t suppose we have time to settle this March Madness style?” Rocky glanced back and forth, getting only a few eyerolls in reply. “I’ll take that as a no.”

Adam smiled. “Someone wanna pick a number between 1 and 100?”

“Well somebody better do something, cause if we’re all still standing here like idiots in thirty seconds I’m pulling rank,” Trini grumbled, tapping her foot impatiently but not putting her hand down.

“Uh, Tri?” Billy said tentatively; her glare swung toward him and he gripped the side of the table to keep from backing away. “Shouldn’t you be here for when the tests on the paper and ink finish? I won’t be here and you’re better than any of them at interpreting those.”

“What the hell, Billy?” Adam protested playfully, unable to hide the amused twinkle in his eyes.

“No, he’s right, Adam, the five of us share like three brain cells and nobody ever has all of them at once,” Rocky said, voice already shaking with restrained laughter. Trini glowered at Billy but lowered her hand.

“This proves nothing,” she muttered. “I could shoot the coin out of any of your morphers from 800 yards and you all know it.”

“All right, this has gone on long enough,” Aisha said, smile still lingering on her face. “I know how to settle this. Who brought the weapons back here, Billy?”

“Trini brought one, Tanya brought the other,” Billy said, nodding to the girl in silver.

Aisha lowered her hand and made eye contact with Tanya. “Then she should do it. Seems only fair.” Tanya stared at her for a second as Rocky, Kat and Adam slowly lowered their hands, grumbling to themselves.

“That’s OK, Sha,” she said, hand still raised like a kid in class. “It doesn’t need to be me, one of you should…”

“No, she’s right,” Adam said. “You actually managed to get one of those. The rest of us were just lucky enough to not get shot with one. It should totally be you.”

Tanya smiled widely at him, letting her hand finally fall to her side. “OK, awesome. Thanks, you guys.”

“OK, let’s get back there,” Billy said. He handed one of the alien weapons to Rick and the other to Tanya and started to lead them toward the small door in the back corner of the lab that had been blocked by a few bits of furniture. As they all worked to move it out of the way, Kat glanced up at the screen again.

“Oh, hey,” she said, pointing. “It’s midnight.”

They all paused and looked at each other for a second. “Holy shit,” Rocky said. “We did all this in one day? The Youth Center feels like a week ago.”

“Weird, isn’t it?” Rick asked, scanning their faces. “I’ve had the same thing happen. The things happening right in front of you feel like they’re moving so fast and then the world off in the background feels like it’s going in slow motion at the same time. It’s a little disorienting.” He leaned over and pulled the last piece of equipment out of the way of the door. “It might take a while, but you get used to it. Promise.”

He smiled in a way he hoped was reassuring as he and Tanya followed Billy through the door and let it swing shut behind them.

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Ballistic Testing Chamber  
** **August 29, 2012  
** **12:05 AM PDT**

Billy’s experimental firing range looked a lot like many of the other firing ranges Rick had seen in his time; it had the typical demarcated shooting lanes, with targets mounted at various distances, was surrounded by the same nondescript concrete walls, even had the same buzzing fluorescent lights blaring down from the ceiling. He and Tanya stepped up to a pair of stalls at the center, resting their bizarre weapons on the waist-high, bar-like counter in front of them. Billy stepped off to one side and leaned a hip against the counter, eyes sharp, observant and a tiny bit eager. Rick bent over and checked beneath the counter.

“You got any ear protection here, Billy?” He asked, groping around a little in the dark beneath the counter.

It was Tanya who answered. “I don’t think we’ll need it, Papa Scott,” she said, already readying the weapon in her hands. “I saw those guys fire these in the field and they don’t make any noise.”

“OK,” he said slowly, pulling himself back upright. “What about eye protection? Just in case?” He half expected the two younger adults to forego that, too, but Billy nodded, leaned over and pulled three pairs of safety glasses from under his part of the counter. He tossed one pair each to Rick and Tanya and pulled on the third himself.

“Ready?” Billy asked, and Rick could see from here that the kid was practically _vibrating_ , whether from excitement or nerves, he couldn’t quite tell.

“Sure,” Rick said tentatively, turning the weapon over in his hands to try and figure out how it worked. Tanya must’ve seen him doing it.

“There’s not a trigger like a normal gun,” she said, holding hers out to him. “I think it’s all made from one solid piece of…whatever the hell this is.” She motioned to a single small indentation on the back, where the hammer would be on a normal pistol. “This is where you fire it from. It’s like those guns they give you when you play laser tag.” Tanya lifted the weapon up in front of her, aiming downrange, and tapped her thumb over the indentation twice in quick succession.

She had been right on one count – there was no sound at all. The light, though…Rick practically tripped over his own feet at the sudden flash of green, as two grapefruit-size balls of shimmering green energy materialized from the end of the barrel as though pulled through a wormhole. They zipped down toward the end of the range, passing straight through everything in their way until they disappeared into the far wall.

Tanya didn’t seem at all surprised to see that, though, just lowered the weapon and turned to Billy. “Look familiar, Billy?” She asked, pushing the thing gently away. Billy nodded, one hand scratching absently at his lip while the other played with the hem of his shirt.

Rick looked at the weapon in his own hands. _Well, shit,_ he thought, shrugging. _Suppose I might as well get in on this._ He lifted his own weapon up to shoulder height in a smooth, practiced motion, astonished at how a piece of what looked like solid metal could be that light, and aimed down the barrel toward the furthest target from him. He noticed the back of the weapon was an almost completely smooth surface – no sights, no slide, no anything, save for the small indentation Tanya had showed him, where he brought his right thumb up and tapped twice, just like she had.

Nothing. He had squinted a little in preparation for a flash that never came, and when none did, he opened both eyes wider and tried again. Two more quick taps on that indentation…and again, nothing. He lowered the gun in front of him, staring at it in confusion.

“Think this one’s broken,” he muttered, not quite achieving the humorous tone he was trying for. He looked at the thing in every direction he could think of, short of staring straight down the barrel. There weren’t any other buttons or switches or triggers, no moving parts at all, and no indication that the thing had been damaged, just that infuriatingly smooth metal from one end to the other.

“That’s weird,” Billy said, furrowing his brow in confusion. “Trini told me she’d fired that thing herself a couple times, and nothing’s happened to it, it’s just been sitting in the lab this whole time.”

Rick turned back to Tanya. “Can you hold up yours again, Tanya?” He asked. She held hers out to him, barrel still aimed downrange; he looked it over, glancing back and forth at his own, and confirmed that they were identical, no indication of moving parts besides the single indentation. “Huh,” he said, almost to himself. “I don’t see any difference between this one and yours. If it fired before I can’t imagine why it would suddenly not be firing now.”

“Could I take a look?” Billy asked, approaching carefully from behind him. Rick turned and handed the weapon to him, stepping away from the counter and folding his arms. Billy examined the thing the same way he just had, and after a minute he made a noise of confusion and swung it downrange, tapping his own thumb over the indentation.

Once again, there was no sound, just a blinding flash of light, a deep, bloody red this time, and another ball of energy explode out of the weapon. Billy had aimed it slightly down, and Rick had expected the ball of light to go right through the floor like Tanya’s had. But instead, it bounced of the concrete floor, leaving a crater nearly eight inches across; it ricocheted off the back wall and the ceiling, leaving identical craters in each, before finally hitting the ground again, less than a yard in front of them, and exploded, leaving a crater almost twice as big as the others.

“Jesus fuckin’ _wept_!” Rick exclaimed, that trace of his long-abandoned accent slipping in again. Billy had jumped back a foot after the first bounce; now he carefully lowered the weapon and turned to Tanya.

“I need to try one more thing. Switch with me.” They traded and then both fired again. This time, it was Billy firing green energy that disappeared into the wall, and Tanya creating the world’s most lethal bouncy ball. Billy turned back to Rick again, holding Tanya’s gun out to him. “Here, try this one. Just to be thorough.”

Far more wary this time, Rick took the weapon and stepped up to the counter. His motions were automatic at this point, even given how frayed every nerve ending had become. Muscle memory just seemed to take over, and he brought the weapon up, aimed, braced himself, and tapped twice.

Once again, nothing happened. He blew a frustrated breath out through his nose and tossed the thing back to Billy, who juggled it a few times before he got his grip. Tanya set hers down and stood with her hands on her hips, glancing back and forth from the gun Billy was now holding to her own. “I don’t understand,” she said, safety glasses sliding the slightest bit down her nose. “They both work for us just fine. Why don’t they work for you?”

“I think I might know,” Billy said, gently laying the weapon he’d just caught on another part of the counter. “Think about it, Tan. What’s the one very significant thing you and I have in common that Mr. Scott doesn’t?”

“I mean, obviously that we’re Rangers, Billy, but…” she trailed off, sputtering a little in bewilderment. “Those blue aliens out there were using these just fine. How would they be able to… _oh_.”

Rick saw on her face the second the idea had registered; it was only an instant after he’d landed there himself. The thought was like a splash of icy water, painfully cold and intensely sharp. He turned to Billy, who was running a hand through his hair and fighting to look up from the floor.

“It would appear that these weapons are only usable by individuals who have some degree of connection to the Morphin’ Grid,” he said slowly, as though hoping if he drew it out long enough he could find a loophole in it to slip through. “Which means I believe we now know where this energy they’re using comes from.” He walked over and picked up both the weapons, shoving one into each pocket. “These things are drawing their power from the same source as we do. And if they’re able to summon energy from the Grid in such a concentrated form, it seems a logical next step to conclude that their exposure to it has been either prolonged or extremely intense.” He finally managed to meet Rick’s eye. “We know the one in there used to be a normal human before it looked like that. I believe I now also have some idea as to how it came to look that way.”

Rick folded his arms and lowered his head, whispering a prayer as he tried to fight off the wave of dizziness that threatened to knock him off his feet. This was all a little too much, too fast, even for him. He looked up again to find both of the kids staring at him, concern and curiosity on their faces in equal measure.

“Sorry,” he said, “This is a lot all at once. You two should fill your friends in on the rest of this. I need to go see my son.”

Tanya grabbed him by the arm as he moved to walk past her. “Papa Scott, I don’t think Zordon is going to let you in there…”

He yanked his arm away, a bit more harshly than he’d meant, and hated himself for the look of shock and hurt on her face. “He’s clearly never had any kids of his own if he thinks he can keep me out.”

He didn’t give either of them a chance to respond, his walk quickly accelerating to a jog as he pushed back through the door, through the lab, and out into the hallway.

* * *

**Unknown Location  
** **12:10 AM PDT**

“Hey, Jase. Hell of a day, huh?”

Jason thought maybe his brain had stopped working entirely. All he was able to do at the moment was stand frozen in place, staring dumbstruck at the figure who stood before him. His tongue was like a piece of sandpaper in his mouth, jaw working its way around words he couldn’t move enough air to say out loud. He blinked rapidly, shaking his head a little as though what he was seeing was some sort of hallucination that he could banish from sight if he just tried hard enough. Then again, though, he was standing here with a thousand-year-old wizard from another planet in a pocket dimension created by his connection to a nebulous power source that might or might not have had a mind of its own, so he wasn’t sure he had room to question what he saw here.

And still, it didn’t make sense; even as powerful as this power source was, it couldn’t wake the dead. It couldn’t turn back time. And as far as he knew, it couldn’t create new life where none had been before.

Right?

Finally, Jason swallowed hard, licked his lips with a still sluggish tongue, and found a fraction of his voice. “Zack?” He asked again, feeling his knees go wobbly at the sound of the name. The figure before him, which was indeed the spitting image of Zack, in the same clothes Jason had last seen him wearing way back in Geneva, in another world, earlier that day and yet a lifetime ago, smiled broadly and wiggled his fingers in a little wave.

“Yeah, dude, it’s me.” He cocked his head to one side. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten what I looked like already.” Jason smiled despite himself, letting out a wheeze that was almost a laugh.

“Are you…?” Jason stepped shakily forward and clapped a hand onto Zack’s shoulder, where it caught, solid and warm and _real_ , so real it almost felt like an electric shock went through his arm. He squeezed, hard, as though afraid if he didn’t hold on tight Zack would slip away again. “Holy _fuck_ ,” he croaked, and scanned Zack’s face as though looking for a tell that it wasn’t actually him. “I thought I was never gonna see you again.”

“Well that isn’t something I would wish on anybody,” Zack said softly, smiling again. Jason finally made himself return it and threw his arms around Zack’s neck, pounding him on the back like they always did.

“I don’t understand,” Jason said as he pulled back, hands resting on Zack’s shoulders again, voice shaking, eyes beginning to well up. “The others, they…they watched you die. I saw your body. How are you…” he trailed off and glanced around them at the infinite white background they stood in. “How are you here right now?” A thought suddenly struck him, and he craned his head up to search frantically over the top of Zack’s head. “Wait. Are my mom and brothers here, too? Have you seen them since you’ve been here?”

Zack didn’t speak for a second; then he heard Zordon from behind him. “I’m afraid they’re not here, Jason. When Zachary passed on, his consciousness left behind a residual imprint of energy on the Morphin’ Grid. He was able to make himself appear here, but it won’t last forever. At some point, even this energy imprint will fade.”

Jason turned back to face Zordon, not relinquishing his hold on his oldest friend. “And after that?”

Zordon smiled sadly and shook his head, but it was Zack who spoke up.

“No spoilers, Big Z,” he said, leveling a finger at Zordon. “I’d rather be surprised.” Jason turned back to look him in the eye again and he added, “I’m finally gonna get to see which one of us is right.”

“Honestly, at this point, I really hope it’s you,” Jason said. “I wish like hell I could believe it myself.”

Zack reached up and wrapped a hand around Jason’s arm. “Tell you what. If it turns out I am right, I’ll be sure to put in a good word for you.”

Jason grinned, letting go with one hand to wipe his eyes. “Thanks.” He returned his hand to Zack’s shoulder. “You’d think after everything else I wouldn’t have been so surprised to see you here.”

“I would’ve at least thought you’d’ve recognized me a little faster. Who were you expecting? Morpheus?”

“Actually, I was expecting Dumbledore, which you would’ve heard if you’d popped yourself in here a few minutes earlier. What the hell took you so long?” Zack laughed.

“Hey, cut me some slack, man, I’m dead.” They both laughed at that one, Jason finally letting his hands fall away from Zack’s shoulders so he could lean forward onto his knees.

Once the laughter had ebbed, Jason looked back up at him. “So do you have any idea how long you have here? How long before this energy imprint runs out?”

Zack thought for a second. “Not really. I can kind of feel how strong my connection is with this place, and I can feel it kind of gradually fading, but I don’t know how long that’s gonna take.” Jason sighed and straightened, trying to process all this.

“So what, are you gonna, like, start turning see-through like the end of _Back to the Future_?” He’d hoped that would make Zack laugh, but instead he seemed to seriously ponder it.

“Hmm. Maybe. I guess we’ll find out.”

“You don’t seem the least bit worried about it.”

“I mean, once you’ve gotten through dying, nothing else really seems quite so worth worrying about.”

Jason had been about to say something, but the reality of what Zack had just said began to sink in, and he swallowed the words back down. Finally, he found his voice again. “Listen, man, I, uh…I don’t really know how to say this, but…” he stopped to gather himself and ran a hand over his face. “God, Zack, I’m so sorry, I couldn’t…”

Zack jabbed a finger into his chest to cut him off. His face darkened. “Jase, if you finish that sentence I’m gonna seriously reconsider putting a good word in for you.”

“But-“

“But nothing, you big adorable idiot,” Zack interrupted again, giving his shoulder a shake to punctuate it. “Did you invade Earth? Did you drop a fuckload of radioactive rainbow balls onto our campus in Geneva? Are you a collapsing eight-story building?” Jason furrowed his brow in confusion. “No? Then you are not responsible for what happened to me.” He motioned past Jason with his head. “I wasn’t here for all of it, but I caught the last bit of what Zordon was saying, and he’s right. Sometimes bad things just fucking _happen_ , and even demigods like you can’t do anything about it.”

Jason shook his head, his hands curling into fists again. “I got Trini out. I could’ve at least _tried_ not to leave you behind. There had to have been something I could’ve done, _something_ , besides just running away like a fucking useless waste of…” he trailed off, his body shaking too badly to keep his voice steady. Zack grabbed Jason by the jaw and wrenched his head up to glare at him dead in the eye.

“Jase, listen to me, OK? I was there. I lived it. There. Was. _Nothing_. You. Could. Do. If I have to repeat that on a loop until I pop on out of here to make you believe it I’m gonna goddamn do it.”

He let go of Jason’s jaw and let his hand fall to his side. Jason looked at him skeptically. “That’s a weird thing to say for someone who thinks there’s an all-encompassing plan for the universe.”

Zack frowned. “Why?”

Jason set his jaw. “Because if there was a plan, and that plan was for you and I to go through everything we lived together just for you to die in some shitty dorm building before the most important thing we ever did had even really begun, then that plan is _fucking shit_ , and whatever made it can go fuck itself. If you get over there and you are right, tell whoever’s in charge there I said they’re a heartless bastard. You believed in that your entire life and you fucking deserved better.” He couldn’t stop the sob from bursting loose this time, and he squeezed Zack’s shoulder and cried silently for a moment, biting down on his fist to keep himself from bawling.

Zack smiled sadly, gently pulling Jason’s hand away from his shoulder. “You know, as much as I love the thought of cussing out God for you, you don’t have to be angry about that on my account.” He waited for Jason’s breathing to even out before continuing. “I saw that you and Trini got out, and since I’m the only one here, I’m guessing everyone else is OK, right?”

“Mostly,” Jason said, laughing softly through the lump rising in his throat. “How much have you been able to see from here?”

“Not much,” Zack said, eyes downturned as though in deep thought. “Feelings, mostly; impressions. Some good, some really, _really_ not.” He looked back up. “It didn’t really hit me before when you asked about your mom and brothers, but are they..” All Jason could do was nod. Zack winced. “Christ, Jase, I’m sorry. What about your dad, is he…?”

“Yeah, he’s OK, we’ve had him back at the Command Center with us for the last few hours,” Jason said. “In fact he’s kind of why I’m here right now.” Zack arched his eyebrows, a question on his face. “It’s a long story.”

“Well,” Zack said carefully, seeming to ponder something for a moment. “I don’t feel like my link to this place is getting that much weaker just yet. Why don’t we find a place to sit down and you can fill me in.”

There weren’t any walls or furniture in whatever this place was, and after only a minute or two of first looking for it and then trying to will it into existence, they decided to just sit cross-legged on what passed for the ground and just talk, like they’d done so many thousands of times over two decades’ worth of friendship. Jason filled Zack in as best he could with everything that had happened since they’d last been together – the attacks, the drama, the things Billy had discovered and the things Jason himself had done and not done that he wished he could change. Zack was as sharply observant as Jason had ever seen him, talking him through everything he laid out in front of him and putting everything into brand new perspective for him.

Eventually, their upright, cross-legged positions transitioned into the two of them laying flat on their backs, heads next to each other, feet extending out in opposite directions, like they’d done on so many nights before when the sun had set over the ocean and they had a bonfire going or the headlights of someone’s car or just the stars in the Angel Grove sky to see by, and their friends had been clustered around them and they had laughed and joked and teased each other as though nothing in life would ever change and all of them were invincible.

God, but things had been so perfect then, Jason realized as he laughed at another one of Zack’s jokes, trying to ignore the fact that he couldn’t actually feel his friend’s breath on his face because it wasn’t there. They really had all thought they were unstoppable, that there was nothing in the wide, infinite stretch of their universe – expanding so much further everyday, showing them things no other human in history had had the power to see – that would ever beat them, that the power they’d been chosen for and the power of their relationships would be enough to fight off anything that was thrown at them.

He wanted that feeling back more than anything in the world, felt a part of his brain reaching out for it as though if he just stretched far enough back into his own past he could grasp it again and everything would be OK.

But his dad had always told him that it wasn’t healthy to focus on how things could’ve been or how they used to be, because more often than not that was only a distraction from the way things actually were. Jason had to force down the clawing, yearning nostalgia that had begun to build in his stomach and the base of his throat, a physical reminder of a part of his life that had been cut short far too quickly and that he would never get back. He told himself he had to be stronger than that, that his friends and every other surviving human was counting on him to be steady, to be the rock that they could hold onto as they were dragged forward into an uncertain future. It was a lot for a 21-year-old kid, but as Zordon had said, the Grid had chosen them because for whatever reason it had thought they were the best people for the job.

The only people for the job.

He’d be damned if he was the one to prove it wrong. 

There was a lull in the conversation after a while, and the two of them lapsed into a comfortable silence for a time, just relishing in the fact that they had gotten to see each other again one more time. At some point Jason realized Zordon had disappeared; he wasn’t sure when or where he’d gone but it didn’t seem to matter very much right that second.

“This isn’t fair,” he finally said softly. Zack didn’t respond, but he could see in his peripheral vision that his friend had turned his head to look at him. “I’m not the only one here who would’ve wanted to talk to you. The others should all get a chance to be here.”

“In a perfect world, they all would have,” Zack said wistfully. “But you and I both know that the world ain’t perfect, Jase.”

Jason grunted in agreement. “Used to think that was part of the charm,” he said thoughtfully. “Now I just think it sucks.”

Zack smiled next to him. “I knew on some level that when I got here it wouldn’t be for very long. If I only had time to talk to one of you, I’m glad it was you.” Jason opened his mouth to ask why, but Zack seemed to read his mind. “Because you and I have been friends the longest and besides, let’s face it, you needed this the most. None of the others were in danger of guilting themselves to death over me like you were.” He waited a beat. “And don’t deny it, dude, I can _feel_ the denial about to come out of you, just fuckin’ don’t.”

Jason chuckled. “OK, OK, guilty as charged.” He tilted his head toward Zack’s and smirked. “But come on, you know you love me for it.” Zack just rolled his eyes and snorted, covering his eyes with one hand. Jason let his head roll back so he was staring straight up again, already almost used to the endless white that surrounded them.

“You’re right, though,” he said, fingers playing absently with the fabric of his shorts. “I really did need this. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I had to go my whole life thinking I’d never gotten to say goodbye.”

“Hold up, don’t you get all sappy on me now,” Zack said, his tone playful but with an unmistakable undercurrent of warning behind it. Zack started to say more, but the words caught in his throat and he sat bolt upright. “Whoa, that was weird – uh-oh.” Jason sat up behind him.

“What?”

Zack met his eye solemnly. “I think it’s almost time, bro.”

Jason’s eyes widened. “Wait, hang on, it’s not enough, we barely had time to do anything –“

“Jase,” Zack said softly. “I don’t think we really have a say in this part.”

Jason stared at him for a second, panting, and then clenched his jaw and grabbed a fistful of Zack’s shirt. “I don’t fucking accept that,” he said, dark and low, his voice turning venomous. He turned and screamed out into the surrounding white void. “You hear me, you motherfucker? You can’t fucking have him! He’s not fucking done here yet!” He let out a bitter laugh and spat on the ground in front of him. “Goddammit, what the fuck am I doing? You’re not even real, anyway. You spineless fucking asshole. He’s done nothing but what he thought you wanted since the day he was born and this is how you fucking reward him for it? _Fuck you!_ Let him stay. Please, if he’s right and you really are out there, just…let him stay. He doesn’t deserve this.”

As Jason’s voice grew increasingly raw, Zack gently pulled his fingers away from his shirt and stepped back. “It’s too late for that, Jase. We both know I was already gone before I got here. That part was already decided. Besides, you saw my body. I know what happened to me. I know you don’t really want to shove me back into that.” He quirked a little half smile at his friend. “Flattered, though. Really.”

Jason sighed and smiled grimly back. “I’m not even sure what I thought I would accomplish. As far as I know, I’m just yelling at nothing.” He shrugged. “Felt good, though.”

Zack smiled, broadly, genuinely this time. “I’m sure it did, you absolute lunatic.” Jason saw him jerk a little and he blinked rapidly several times, the smile vanishing from his face.

“Jase, listen,” he said, running his tongue over his lips. “I don’t know how much longer I’ve got so I need to make sure I say this.”

“Zack –“

“Hang on, just shut the fuck up for a second and let me say this,” Zack cut him off with a grimace and ran a hand over his face, letting out a long sigh even though Jason knew there was no real air in there. “I want you to promise me that you’re not gonna feel guilty about me anymore. The others need you in there to lead them, and you can’t do it if you’re stuck beating yourself up over me. Agreed?”

He felt his throat constrict, his heart rate accelerating. Zack stepped toward him and jabbed a finger at him. “ _Agreed_?”

Jason swallowed and forced himself to speak. “Yeah, man. Agreed.”

Zack eyed him warily for a moment, as though unsure whether to believe him or not. “I want you to be prepared for the possibility of losing more people. We both saw what these things can do, and if everything you told me is true then the odds of all of you getting out of this alive are basically jack shit. You need to be ready for it, you need to make _them_ ready for it, and when it happens – and I hope it doesn’t, but I think it will – you need to be the one that gets them through it. They cannot keep walking on eggshells around you, they’re gonna need you to be steady so they can lean on you. It’s shitty and unfair and it sucks like nothing else on earth but that’s your job and I still believe you’re better equipped to do it than anyone else in the world.”

Jason just nodded, fighting back another wave of tears. Zack had paused for a beat, but Jason saw him flinch again, clap a hand to the side of his abdomen, and wince, as though he’d been punched. Before he could voice his concern, Zack plowed ahead.

“Tell the others that I love ‘em and I’m pulling for you guys, all right?” Jason started to answer but he continued quickly, before he lost his nerve. “Tell Tommy and Kim that if they don’t figure their shit out and start making some babies I’m gonna haunt them both until the day they die.” Jason smirked at that. “Tell Billy he’s the most brilliant son of a bitch I’ve ever met and if anybody can figure out how to save the world, it’s him. Tell Rocky I’m happy for him cause he can finally be the designated dirty joke guy.” Jason actually chuckled a little that time. “Tell Adam that I’m glad someone’s still around down there to argue with you about the nature of the universe and tell Aisha she just inherited my job of kicking all of your asses when the bullshit gets too deep.” Zack let out a shuddering breath. “Tell Kat I really wish I could’ve visited Australia, cause if everyone from there is as great as she is, we would’ve had a really good time. Tell Tanya that I wish I could’ve gotten to know her better, but from what I saw she’s gonna be great at this.” There was a pause and Zack cocked another lazy, almost obnoxious grin. “And tell Trini that I would absolutely have officiated your wedding if we all lived that long, and that you two are the two greatest people I’ve ever met. You get all that?”

“Yeah, bro,” Jason said wetly. He tapped the side of his head with one finger. “Right here. Head like a steel trap, remember?”

“A rusty steel trap, maybe,” Zack muttered, and the two of them shared one more laugh, standing there together at the edges of what either of them had thought was possible.

“Steel doesn’t rust, dumbass, that’s the point,” Jason said playfully, still shaking with laughter and other emotions he didn’t dare put labels to. Zack just shrugged, his eyes darting back and forth over his body as though waiting for another episode of whatever made him flinch before.

“Do you guys still have my body?” He made a face as he asked the question, like it tasted weird on his tongue, and Jason didn’t blame him.

“Yeah, Billy put it on ice in the lab until we can have a proper funeral for you.”

Zack nodded thoughtfully and flinched again, harder, this one pulling his body halfway around before he steadied himself.

“Nothing fancy, OK? No tears, no black suits, none of that bullshit. Get everyone drunk, have Rocky or Aisha conjure up some weed from somewhere, and find my 90’s hip-hop Spotify playlist and crank that shit until the sun comes up. I want you so far gone you rap along to Fuck the Police while your dad is right there.” Another shared smile, another nod from Jason, as though he’d deny Zack anything at all at this point.

“And tell my…” Jason saw Zack’s breath hitch in his throat for the first time as he struggled to finish the sentence. It was weird every time, with him knowing there was no air in his throat to start with. “Tell my family…” He stopped again, running a hand over his face, searching the infinite whiteness as though the words would appear hanging in the air. He suddenly whipped back to Jason, eyes widening as inspiration struck.

“Tell my family it…didn’t hurt, OK? Tell ‘em what happened to me happened after I was already gone. I don’t want them to remember me like that.” Another flinch, another grimace. “Tell ‘em I was a hero, even if it’s not true.”

“You _are_ a hero, Zack,” Jason practically shouted, needing to get this out while he still had a chance. “You saved my life more times than I can count; I wouldn’t be able to do this job now if it wasn’t for you. You’re a warrior, you’re a fucking legend. They’re gonna name streets and elementary schools and federal buildings after you when this is all over, trust me, I’ll make ‘em. I’ll tell them that because it’s _true_.”

“Thanks, Jase,” he said softly, smiling ever so slightly, and Jason felt a sharp, white-hot bolt of grief spear its way into his chest. He saw his friend jerk again, even harder than before, and wipe the sweat off his forehead. “Don’t have a lot more time,” he said through clenched teeth. “It’s gonna happen any second now.”

“We’re gonna do this, Zack,” Jason said as firmly as he could manage. “I swear on everything either of us believes in, we’re gonna kill every single one of these things and we’re gonna carve your name into their fucking skulls when we do it.” He sighed deeply to stop his shoulders from shaking and wiped at his eyes with one hand.

“Jase, if I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand goddamn times,” Zack said with an exasperated snort. “Relax, dude. You’ll –“

His voice cut off and Jason whipped his head up to find himself alone again, standing there in the silence and emptiness and _nothing_ that he’d been in when he first got here.

“ _Live longer_ ,” he finished, muttering into the void, letting his words be swallowed up by the infinite space that surrounded him. “I’ll do my best, Zack-man. See you later, bro.”

He stood there for another long moment, his eyes dry this time, staring at the spot where Zack had been and just saying a silent goodbye to another part of his childhood that he would never get back.

* * *

**Command Center  
** **Main Chamber  
** **12:15 AM PDT**

Rick had been surprised to find the door to the Main Chamber unlocked this time. He swung it open as quietly as he could and stepped across the threshold, gently letting the door swing shut behind him. The lights had been dimmed but flickered back to full brightness when he moved inside.

The first thing he noticed once his eyes had adjusted was Jason, sitting calmly on the floor, knees drawn up to his chest, head tilted back against the console he was sitting in front of. His eyes were closed, his breathing slow and even, as though he were asleep, and his face looked more peaceful than Rick had seen him look all day.

“Jase?” He said softly, tenderly, suddenly feeling a surge of paternal instinct he hadn’t felt since the day Jason was born. He took a careful step closer, torn between wanting to wake his son up and see if he was OK and letting him rest for a minute.

“Mr. Scott.” The voice, low, rumbling but still soft and quiet, caught him about halfway across the room and he turned to see that the face in the tube was back. He glanced back to his son and spoke with his back to the tube.

“Where is he right now?” He asked, without malice or suspicion, only fatherly concern. Zordon waited for a moment to answer.

“He has entered a very deep state of relaxation; I believe it is not unlike the meditation he performs in his martial arts training.” Rick nodded; he’d taught him some of that meditation himself. “He and I have combined that with his connection to the power grid so that he can…talk some things out. I’ve been keeping an eye on him since you all left.”

Rick couldn’t take this anymore; he turned and spoke directly to the tube. “You know these are _children_ , right?” He asked, gesturing at his son as he spoke. “They’re not soldiers, they’re not trained fighters, most of them weren’t even old enough to drive when you brought them here.” He let his arm fall back to his side. “They’re traumatized by this, you know. I’ve spoken with almost all of them and every single one has some kind of indication that they’re gonna have permanent psychological scarring from this. And that’s to say nothing of the physical injuries.” He moved closer to the tube, on a roll that he was unable to stop. “For god’s sake, one of them is _dead_.” He jabbed a finger at the tube. “Where the hell do you get off, putting that on them?”

To his surprise, Zordon answered immediately, seeming to take no offense at his words or tone. “I didn’t choose them for this, Mr. Scott. They may believe that, but as I told your son just a moment ago, I didn’t choose any of them. The power coins they wield will only activate for very particular people, people the Morphin’ Grid itself deems the best option to possess that power. I had nothing to do with it. They wield these powers because they are the only people who could.”

Rick took a second to ponder that, running a hand over his face. Finally he turned to look at his son again, the only thing he had left in the world. “Can I sit with him?”

“Of course.” He could hear the smile in the rumbling voice. Rick moved quickly to Jason’s side, sitting down as smoothly as he could and wrapping an arm around his son’s shoulders, letting his head rest on his own shoulder.

“Do we know how much longer he’ll be asleep?” He asked, not taking his eyes off his son.

“It is hard to say,” Zordon said. “But time moves differently where he is right now. It could happen at any moment.”

As if on cue, Jason stirred and blinked a few times, lifting his head off his father’s shoulder.

“Dad?” He asked, voice still slurred with sleep. He cleared his throat and shook some of the sleep from his head. “What are you doing here? Are you OK?”

Rick smiled. “I’m fine, pal. Nothing to worry about, see?” He pointed at the wound in his head, which even through the bandage had clearly stopped bleeding. “Takes a lot more than that to put your old man down.”

“Clearly,” Jason said with a laugh. “Sorry about that either way.”

“It’s fine, son, really,” Rick insisted, wrapping his arm around his son’s shoulders a little tighter. “What about you? How are you feeling?”

“You know, to be honest, I don’t think I’ve felt this good all day,” Jason said, and to Rick’s astonishment, his son seemed to mean it. “I guess I had some things I had to work through and I got some really great help.” He turned to look up at Zordon. “From a couple of really great friends.”

Rick glanced at the tube as well and he could’ve sworn he saw it smile. He turned back to Jason and said, “Well all right then. You feelin’ up to getting back out there and kicking some ass?”

Jason made direct eye contact with him this time and nodded once, firmly. “Yes, sir,” he said, his voice so clear and strong and determined that Rick decided this was the most proud he had ever been of his firstborn son. He beamed at him, hoping his pride showed on his face.

“Atta boy,” he said, shaking his shoulders affectionately. “Now come on, your friends are in the lab with Billy and they’ve got some stuff you should probably get caught up on.”

“Well then what the fuck are we still sitting here for?” Jason hopped to his feet and gave his father a hand up, and then the two of them strode out of the Main Chamber together, not bothering to close the door behind them, and practically ran down the hallway toward Billy’s lab.

They had a war to finish.


End file.
